The Book of Malachi

Malachi is another short book that records a prophetic teaching.  We do not know much about Malachi himself.

It is only four chapters and seems to focus on "robbing" God through poor tithes and offerings.  Apparently, a problem had arisen in the newly reconstructed temple in which people sacrificed blind and diseased animals and not the best of the flock.  

Another theme is the analogy of their relationship with God to a marriage.  In this context, God says "I hate divorce", which is an interesting prequel to the situation Christ finds later on.

Malachi 3:1-5 mentions that God will send a messenger to prepare the way for God to come to the temple.  This could refer to John the Baptist preparing the way for Christ, but I think caution should be reached with that conclusion because the stated result in this passage is that the sacrifices by the Levites would be purified.  If we take that literally, then it refers to a time when the sacrifices still occurred.  If we take these passages a bit less literally, we can match it with Christ.  At the very least, it has parallels and similarities to Christ clearing out the money changers in the temple.

Another idea is that the "messenger" is Malachi himself.  The marginalia of my NIV bible says that the name "Malachi" actually means "messenger".  So, Malachi 3 could be referring to himself and the impact that Malachi's message would have.