Albert Barnes Commentary Malachi 3:13

"Your words have been stout against me, saith Jehovah. Yet ye say, What have we spoken against thee?" — Malachi 3:13 (ASV)

Your words have been stout against Me—probably meaning "oppressive to Me," as it is said, the famine was strong upon the land. And you have said, "What have we spoken among ourselves against You?" Again, the entire unconsciousness of self-ignorance and self-conceit! They had criticized God and did not know it. Before, he had said (Malachi 2:17): "You have wearied the Lord with your words. And you said, 'How have we wearied Him?' When you said, 'Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord.'" etc.

Now he repeats this more fully. For the people who returned from Babylon seemed to have a knowledge of God, and to observe the law, and to understand their sin, and to offer sacrifices for sin; to pay tithes, to observe the Sabbath, and the rest commanded in the law of God. Yet, seeing all the nations around them abounding in all things while they themselves were in penury, hunger, and misery, they were scandalized and said, "What does it benefit me that I worship the One True God, abominate idols, and, pricked with the consciousness of sin, walk mournfully before God?"

This is a topic that is pursued more extensively in Psalm 73. Only, the Psalmist relates his temptations to God and God’s deliverance of him from them; these people, however, adopted those temptations and spoke them against God.

They claim, for their partial and meagre service, to have fulfilled God’s law, taking to themselves God’s words concerning Abraham, "he kept My charge."