Malachi 3:7 & 4:1-6

7 Even from the days of your fathers you have gone away from my ordinances, and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you, says the LORD of hosts. But you said, Wherein shall we return?

The House of Israel will at first, however, not believe that they NEED to return.

13 Your words have been stout against me, says the LORD. Yet you say, What have we spoken [so much] against you?
14 You have said, It [is] in vain to serve God; and what profit [is it] that we have kept his ordinances, and that we have walked mournfully before the LORD of hosts?

They feel that the law (especially the Oral Law) has been “done away” with.

15 And now we call the proud happy, yes, they that work wickedness are set up; yes, [they that] tempt God are even delivered.
16 Then they that feared the LORD spoke often one to another; and the LORD hearkened, and heard [it], and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the LORD, and that thought upon his name.
17 And they shall be mine, says the LORD of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels, and I will spare them, as a man spares his own son that serves him.
18 Then shall you return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serves God and him that serves him not.

It is God’s plan that the House of Israel is to RETURN (repent) and remember.

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