Malachi Send him, oh Lord; send us your promised one though he should burn us like the fuller's lye; we need his fire to melt and purify and turn the father's heart back to his son, to bend the son's heart to his father's love and priestly hearts to pleasing sacrifice. Refine this world with flames of paradise; rebuild the Eden from which once you drove our disobedient forebears to the waste. Renew the barren ground that was their doom; send him whose toil alone can make it bloom, whose sweat and tears are feasts of sweetest taste. Remake us in his crucible to be a people who can look on you and see.

Illustration of the coming of God’s Messenger in [Malachi] 3:1
Amos For three crimes, Lord, and then for four, you strike no evil down. How then for evils more and more, a flood where faith has drowned? What recompense have you in store for those who fix the pound to cheat the weak and buy the poor? Look over their accounts! You see them, Lord, as well as hear the sins that heav'nward cry! You bid me speak these words of fear; call them to rectify. They turn from me back to their cheer and raise their glasses high to toast the profits of a year they think escaped your eye. What will you do, oh Lord, and when? When will you make things right? Send justice down to walk with men, though it turn noon to night! Or kill the firstborn once again and armies put to flight. Bring justice, Lord, as you did then to all within your sight!









