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 time for you -- you! To dwell in your covered houses, And this house to lie waste?

For this is what the Lord of armies has said: In a short time I will make a shaking of the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land;

And now, give thought, looking back from this day to the time before one stone was put on another in the Temple of the Lord:

From that time one hath come to a heap of twenty, And it hath been ten, He hath come unto the wine-fat to draw out fifty purahs, And it hath been twenty.

And now, give thought; looking on from this day, from the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, from the time when the base of the Lord's house was put in its place, give thought to it.

And there is a word of Jehovah a second time unto Haggai, on the twenty and fourth of the month, saying:

And as for thee, O Zerubbabel, sayeth the LORD of Hosts, thou son of Shealtiel my servant: I will take thee, sayeth the LORD, at the same time: and make thee as a seal. For I have chosen thee, sayeth the LORD of Hosts.'"