The prophet Malachi addresses the treachery of divorcing the wife of one's youth in order to marry the daughter of a foreign god. Such action profanes the covenant and covers the altar with tears because the Lord serves as witness between the man and the woman joined by covenant. God made husband and wife one, sustaining them by the Spirit of life, precisely so that they might produce godly offspring. Faithlessness toward the wife of one's youth therefore frustrates the central purpose of marriage. This warning stands within the larger call for fathers and children to turn their hearts toward one another lest the land be struck with utter destruction. The same principle requires parents to rear children according to divine revelation rather than worldly patterns, for only then can the heritage God grants be developed into mature, godly seed prepared for life in His Family.