How does purification accompany the call to return?

The heading interprets Christ’s temple coming, priesthood purification, punishment and penitents’ blessing. God sends his angel to prepare the way; the desired Lord and angel of the testament presently come to his temple. The edition identifies the first messenger as John the Baptist, Christ’s forerunner. The question of who can think of or stand at his coming accompanies refining fire and fuller’s herb. Levi’s sons are cleansed like silver and gold to offer in justice; Juda and Jerusalem’s sacrifice again pleases as in old days.

God comes as speedy witness against sorcerers, adulterers, false swearers and oppressors of wage earners, widows, fatherless and strangers who do not fear him. He does not change, and Jacob’s sons are not consumed. After ancestral departures from ordinances he calls for return and promises return. Asked how they afflict him, he names tithes and firstfruits and the nation’s curse with want. All tithes must enter the storehouse for food in his house. He invites testing of this promise: heaven’s floodgates and abundant blessing, rebuke of the devourer so land fruit is not spoiled and the vine not barren, and nations calling the land blessed and delightful. This specified promise is not generalized into a financial guarantee; devourer is not replaced by a disease diagnosis.

Their unsufferable words call service vain and question the profit of ordinances and sorrowful walking, while proud and wicked people seem prospering and preserved. Those fearing God speak with neighbors; he hears, and a remembrance book is written for those who fear and think on his name. They are his special possession on judgment’s day, spared like a serving son. The people will see the difference between just and wicked, serving and not serving. The book is not given additional eternal-reward mechanics or a dated interval after the earlier prophecy.