Malachi 2:8

Translations

King James Version (KJV)

But you are departed out of the way; you have caused many to stumble at the law; you have corrupted the covenant of Levi, said the LORD of hosts.

American King James Version (AKJV)

But you are departed out of the way; you have caused many to stumble at the law; you have corrupted the covenant of Levi, said the LORD of hosts.

American Standard Version (ASV)

But ye are turned aside out of the way; ye have caused many to stumble in the law; ye have corrupted the covenant of Levi, saith Jehovah of hosts.

Basic English Translation (BBE)

But you are turned out of the way; you have made the law hard for numbers of people; you have made the agreement of Levi of no value, says the Lord of armies.

Webster's Revision

But ye have departed out of the way; ye have caused many to stumble at the law; ye have corrupted the covenant of Levi, saith the LORD of hosts.

World English Bible

But you have turned aside out of the way. You have caused many to stumble in the law. You have corrupted the covenant of Levi," says Yahweh of Armies.

English Revised Version (ERV)

But ye are turned aside out of the way; ye have caused many to stumble in the law; ye have corrupted the covenant of Levi, saith the LORD of hosts.

Clarke's Malachi 2:8 Bible Commentary

But ye are departed out of the way - Ye are become impure yourselves, and ye have led others into iniquity.

Barnes's Malachi 2:8 Bible Commentary

But ye - o are departed out of the way "of knowledge, truth, equity, fear of God, which I appointed to Aaron and the Levites." "Ye have caused many to stumble at the law." He does not simply say, "in the law," but "at" it. The law was what they stumbled at. They did not only misunderstand the law, through the false teaching of the priests, as though it allowed things which in truth were sins (although this too); itself was their source of stumbling. As Jesus Himself was "a rock of offence" whereon they stumbled, because through His divine holiness He was not what they expected Him to be, so contrariwise the law became an offence to them through the unholiness and inconsistency of the lives and ways of those who taught it; much as we now hear Christianity spoken against, because of the inconsistency of Christians. So Paul saith to the Jews Romans 2:24, "The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles through you, as it is written;" and, for the sins of Eli's sons (1 Samuel 2:17, Pococke) "men abhorred the offering of the Lord."

And have corrupted the covenant of Levi - as it is said in Nehemiah, Nehemiah 13:29, "They have defiled the priesthood, and the covenant of the priesthood and of Levi, that covenant which was life and peace" Malachi 2:5, and, therefore, forfeited them.

Wesley's Malachi 2:8 Bible Commentary

2:8 But ye - Priests. Stumble at the law - By your false expositions of it. Have corrupted - You have violated it, have contradicted the great intentions of it, and done what in you lay, to defeat them.