“This is the burden of the word of the Lord to Israel by Malachi. He came to warn them that a day was coming, burning as an oven, wherein all stubble should be destroyed, because God loved them. Every message of coming judgment or blessing is a message of love, – whether spoken in words that sound hard, and harsh, and severe, revealing to them their true condition, or in words of tenderness, and comfort and wooing pathos.”
