The pairing with Parashah Toldot, whose central narrative is the birth of Esau and Jacob, Esau's sale of his birthright, and Isaac's blessing ultimately given to Jacob rather than his elder brother, is anchored by the very first verses of the haftarah, which name both brothers directly and state outright that one was loved and the other was not, removing any need to infer the connection from surrounding theme alone.
That directness mirrors the pairing already noted for Bereshit and Noach earlier in this account: rather than a shared image or a parallel structure a listener must recognize, Malachi simply opens by naming the parashah's own two central figures and stating the very distinction the parashah's narrative dramatizes through Isaac's blessing and the birthright sale.
The haftarah's subsequent turn to priestly corruption, seemingly a separate subject, connects back to the parashah's own tension between appearance and true worth: Esau sold something of genuine value for a moment's hunger, and the priests condemned here offer something of no real value while expecting it to be received as genuine, two different failures to recognize what actually matters joined by the shared haftarah reading.