¹In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, on the first day of the month, the word of the Lord came through the intermediacy of Haggai the prophet, with a prophecy for Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, the governor of Judah, and for Joshua the son of Jozadak, the high priest, and it said, ²“This is what the Lord of hosts says: ‘This people has said, «The time has not come, the time for the house of the Lord to be built.» ’ ” ³And the word of the Lord came through the intermediacy of Haggai the prophet and said, ⁴“Is it the time for you to dwell in your panelled houses, while this house is lying desolate? ⁵So now, this is what the Lord of hosts says: ‘Consider your ways.

⁶You have sown much,

But brought little in;

Eaten,

But not to satisfaction;

Drunk,

But not to the full;

Clothed yourselves,

But not enough to warm yourselves.

And the hired man hires himself out

For wages going into a purse with holes.’

⁷This is what the Lord of hosts says: ‘Consider your ways. ⁸Go up to the mountain and bring wood, and build the house, and I will accept it. And I will be honoured by it, says the Lord. ⁹You turned your attention to much gain, but look, it came to little, and when you brought it home, I blew on it. Why? says the Lord of hosts. Because of my house, in that it is desolate, but you run, each man to his own house. ¹⁰That is why heaven is shut on you, so that there is no dew, and the land has held back its produce. ¹¹For I called a drought on the land and on the mountains, and on the corn, and on the new wine, and on the new oil, and on that which the ground produces, and on man and on the cattle, and on all manual toil.’ ” ¹²Then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Joshua the son of Jozadak, the high priest, and all the remainder of the people, heeded the Lord their God, and the words of Haggai the prophet, according as the Lord their God sent him, and the people feared the Lord. ¹³And Haggai the Lord's messenger spoke with the Lord's message to the people and said, “I am with you, says the Lord.” ¹⁴And the Lord roused the spirit of Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, the governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua the son of Jozadak, the high priest, and the spirit of all the remainder of the people, and they came, and they carried out the work in the house of the Lord of hosts their God, ¹⁵on the twenty-fourth day of the month, in the sixth month, in the second year of Darius the king.