Thus spake Jehovah of Hosts, saying: This people! -- they have said, 'The time hath not come, The time the house of Jehovah is to be built.'

"[Is it] a time for you yourselves to dwell in your houses that have been paneled [while] this house [is] desolate?"

Ye have sown much, and brought in little, To eat, and not to satiety, To drink, and not to drunkenness, To clothe, and none hath heat, And he who is hiring himself out, Is hiring himself for a bag pierced through.

Thus says the Lord of hosts, “Consider your ways and thoughtfully reflect on your conduct!

Go up the mountain, and ye have brought in wood, And build the house, and I am pleased with it. And I am honoured, said Jehovah.

'You have looked for much, and look! [It came] to little; and [when] you brought [it] home, I blew it [away]. Why?' {declares} Yahweh of hosts. 'Because my house [is] desolate and you [are] running each to your own house!

Therefore, over you refrained have the heavens from dew, And the land hath refrained its increase.

I have called for a drought, both upon the land and upon the mountains, upon corn, upon wine, and upon oil, upon everything that the ground bringeth forth, upon men and upon cattle, yea and upon all handy labour."

The agreement which I made with you when you came out of Egypt, and my spirit, are with you still; have no fear.

And I have shaken all the nations, And they have come to the desire of all the nations, And I have filled this house with honour, Said Jehovah of Hosts.

But now, do consider [what will happen] from this day forward: before one stone was placed on another in the temple of the Lord,

from that time when one came to a grain heap expecting twenty measures, there would be only ten; and when one came to the wine vat to draw out fifty measures, there would be only twenty.

I have smitten you with blasting, And with mildew, and with hail -- All the work of your hands, And there is none of you with Me, An affirmation of Jehovah.

Is the seed yet in the barn? And hitherto the vine and the fig, And the pomegranate, and the olive-tree, Have not borne -- from this day I bless.'

And have overturned the throne of kingdoms, And I have destroyed the strength of kingdoms of the nations, And overturned chariot and its charioteers, And come down have horses and their riders, Each by the sword of his brother.

In that day -- an affirmation of Jehovah of Hosts, I take thee, Zerubbabel, son of Shealtiel, My servant -- an affirmation of Jehovah, And have set thee as a signet, for on thee I have fixed, An affirmation of Jehovah of Hosts!