- 1
- In the second year of King
Darius, on the first day of the sixth month, the word of the LORD came
through the prophet Haggai to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of
Judah, and to Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest:
- 2
- This is what the LORD Almighty
says: "These people say, `The time has not yet come for the LORD's
house to be built.'"
- 3
- Then the word of the LORD came
through the prophet Haggai:
- 4
- "Is it a time for you
yourselves to be living in your panelled houses, while this house remains a
ruin?"
- 5
- Now this is what the LORD
Almighty says: "Give careful thought to your ways.
- 6
- You have planted much, but
have harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never
have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only
to put them in a purse with holes in it."
- 7
- This is what the LORD Almighty
says: "Give careful thought to your ways.
- 8
- Go up into the mountains and
bring down timber and build the house, so that I may take pleasure in it and
be honoured," says the LORD.
- 9
- "You expected much, but
see, it turned out to be little. What you brought home, I blew away.
Why?" declares the LORD Almighty. "Because of my house, which
remains a ruin, while each of you is busy with his own house.
- 10
- Therefore, because of you the
heavens have withheld their dew and the earth its crops.
- 11
- I called for a drought on the
fields and the mountains, on the grain, the new wine, the oil and whatever
the ground produces, on men and cattle, and on the labour of your
hands."
- 12
- Then Zerubbabel son of
Shealtiel, Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and the whole remnant
of the people obeyed the voice of the LORD their God and the message of the
prophet Haggai, because the LORD their God had sent him. And the people
feared the LORD.
- 13
- Then Haggai, the LORD's
messenger, gave this message of the LORD to the people: "I am with
you," declares the LORD.
- 14
- So the LORD stirred up the
spirit of Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of
Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and the spirit of the whole
remnant of the people. They came and began to work on the house of the LORD
Almighty, their God,
- 15
- on the twenty-fourth day of
the sixth month in the second year of King Darius.
1
2