1In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, in the first day of the month, the LORD’s ⁰word came by Haggai the prophet, to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, saying,

2“This is what the LORD of Armies says: These people say, ‘The time hasn’t yet come, the time for the LORD’s house to be built.’”

3Then the LORD’s word came by Haggai the prophet, saying,

4“Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your panelled houses, while this house lies waste?

5Now therefore this is what the LORD of Armies says: ‘Consider your ways.

6You have sown much, and bring in little. You eat, but you don’t have enough. You drink, but you aren’t filled with drink. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm; and he who earns wages earns wages to put them into a bag with holes in it.’

7“This is what the LORD of Armies says: ‘Consider your ways.

8Go up to the mountain, bring wood, and build the house. I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified,” says the LORD.

9“You looked for much, and, behold, ¹it came to little; and when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why?” says the LORD of Armies, “Because of my house that lies waste, while each of you is busy with his own house.

10Therefore for your sake the heavens withhold the dew, and the earth withholds its fruit.

11I called for a drought on the land, on the mountains, on the grain, on the new wine, on the oil, on that which the ground produces, on men, on livestock, and on all the labour of the hands.”

12Then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel and Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, with all the remnant of the people, obeyed the LORD their God’s ²voice, and the words of Haggai the prophet, as the LORD their God had sent him; and the people feared the LORD.

13Then Haggai, the LORD’s messenger, spoke the LORD’s message to the people, saying, “I am with you,” says the LORD.

14The LORD stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people; and they came and worked on the house of the LORD of Armies, their God,

15in the twenty-fourth day of the month, in the sixth month, in the second year of Darius the king.