The preceding section ended with a statement of Yahweh"s greatness. The second one opens with a question about why Israel"s priests did not honor Him. The theme of honoring or fearing the Lord appears several times in Malachi making it one of the major themes in this book (cf. Malachi 1:11; Malachi 1:14; Malachi 2:2; Malachi 2:5; Malachi 3:5; Malachi 3:16; Malachi 4:2). The first disputation ( Malachi 1:2-5) is the simplest, and this one ( Malachi 1:6 to Malachi 2:9) is the most complex. [source][source][source]
". . . God inspired Malachi to produce an excoriation of the priests, in the same overall disputation format that governs all the passages of the book, but incorporating terminology and themes from a famous blessing closely associated in everyone"s mind with the priests [1]." [2][source]