ocr: crushed Hopes - Malachi 2:1/-3:18 Iti is tutile to serve God. What did we gain by carrying out his requirements and going about like nuurners before the LORD Almighty?" (Mal. 3:14) lalachi is the last Old Testament voice, and his book serves as a good prelude to the next 400 years of piblical silence. From the sraelites point of view, those tour centuries could be termed 'the era of owered expectations. - They had returned to the land out that land remained a packwater province under the domination of several imperial armies. The grand future of triumph and world peace described by the prophet ...