Malachi 2:10-12 NLT. [10] Are we not all children of the same Father? Are we not all created by the same God? Then why do we betray each other, violating the covenant of our ancestors? [11] Judah has been unfaithful, and a detestable thing has been done in Israel and in Jerusalem. The men of Judah have defiled the LORD’s beloved sanctuary by marrying women who worship idols. [12] May the LORD cut off from the nation of Israel every last man who has done this and yet brings an offering to the LORD of Heaven’s Armies.

In this passage Malachi moves to a new set of topics concerning Israel’s relationship with God.  He begins this first topic by asking two questions to get the people to focus on their heritage and covenant with God.  First, he asks, “Don’t we all have the same Father?”  He is reminding them that they are all physical descendants of Abraham, but more importantly, he also is reminding them they all have the same spiritual heritage in the worship of Jehovah.

He then stresses this spiritual heritage by asking, “Aren’t we all created by the same God?”  In my opinion, Malachi is trying to get the people to remember they have a physical and spiritual relationship with each other as part of the same nation.  They are united and bound together as one because of their place in God’s creation as the nation of Israel.  And Malachi asks them why are they betraying one another and violating the covenant they have between each other and with God.

Their ancestors had entered into a covenant with God.  Jehovah would be their God, and they would be His chosen people.  Their covenant would be passed down from one generation to the next and be everlasting.  That meant that what God and the people had agreed to originally would be the same terms of the covenant by which each succeeding generation would live.

Malachi states that his generation had broken the covenant their ancestors had established.  Then he tells the people how they violated their strong, binding agreement with God by marrying women who worshipped idols.  That action had brought spiritual adultery into the nation.  Those marriages had compromised the purity of the spiritual relationship the people were to have with the one true God.

And the marriages had interfered with the national unity that existed.  The Israelites had been instructed by God to remain loyal to their nation by not mixing their bloodlines with those of other peoples who worshipped gods other than Jehovah.  By marrying idol worshipping women, the men were betraying their commitment to their nation to remain pure physically.

To make matters worse, men who had married idol worshippers were entering the sanctuary of God to offer sacrifices, even though they were committing spiritual adultery by allowing other gods to be worshipped in their homes.  By marrying women who worshipped other Gods, they had violated one of the primary terms of their covenant with Jehovah, and that violation meant they were defiled in God’s eyes.  When they came to offer sacrifices, they were defiling the whole process of worshipping only God.

Malachi’s judgment against those who had committed spiritual adultery and were pretending to worship only Jehovah was for them to be completely cut off from the rest of the nation.  He was trying to bring Israel back to purity with God physically and spiritually.  The best way to do that would be to eliminate the defiled people and relationships from the sanctuary of God, even if that meant removing part of the people from the nation.

New Testament scriptures remind followers of Jesus not to be unequally yoked, or attached and committed, to non-believers.  When we put ourselves into binding physical agreements, covenants, with those who do not follow Jesus, we open ourselves up to making spiritual compromises in order to maintain our physical or emotional relationships with the unbelievers.

Those compromises can defile our spirits and cause us to stray from the truth of how we are to worship our Lord and Savior Jesus.  When we allow our physical nature and desires to determine or influence what we do as disciples of Jesus, we betray the covenant relationship we have with each other and with God.