Contemplative Bible Reading

Malachi 2:3 (New Living Translation)

3 I will punish your descendants and splatter your faces with the manure from your festival sacrifices, and I will throw you on the manure pile.

God is speaking to the people through the prophet Malachi. In particular, God is addressing the priests who have not been conducting the Temple worship in any way, shape, or form according to instructions. In one of the more forgotten or most not-quoted verses of the Bible—yikes—God promises to splatter the faces of the priests with the manure of the sacrificed animals.

Something lost in translation? Nope. I looked in several other translations, even the good old King James Version, and they all contain pretty much the same thing. The King James says “dung” instead of “manure,” but the same thing.

This is not a pretty picture. This is not a pretty odor. Toss in the rest of the physical senses as well and it doesn’t come up pretty in any of them. Why?

Sometimes God uses plain language to describe what is happening and what God will do as a response. Sometimes it is gross and ugly. Sometimes that is necessary to make a point. There are ways God wants us to live. There are reactions when we just don’t follow God’s guidance. Please God, help me in my unbelief.