“The Lord of Hosts says this: These people say: The time has not come for the house of the Lord to be rebuilt.”

So on your account,
the skies have withheld the dew
and the land its crops.

Then Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, the high priest Joshua son of Jehozadak, and the entire remnant of the people obeyed the voice of the Lord their God and the words of the prophet Haggai, because the Lord their God had sent him. So the people feared the Lord.

Haggai, the Lord’s messenger, delivered the Lord’s message to the people, “I am with you”—this is the Lord’s declaration.

Who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Doesn’t it seem like nothing to you?

Even so, be strong, Zerubbabel”—this is the Lord’s declaration. “Be strong, Joshua son of Jehozadak, high priest. Be strong, all you people of the land”—this is the Lord’s declaration. “Work! For I am with you”—the declaration of the Lord of Hosts.

For the Lord of Hosts says this: “Once more, in a little while, I am going to shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land.

I will shake all the nations so that the treasures of all the nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory,” says the Lord of Hosts.

Then Haggai replied, “So is this people, and so is this nation before Me”—this is the Lord’s declaration. “And so is every work of their hands; even what they offer there is defiled.

“Now, reflect back from this day: Before one stone was placed on another in the Lord’s temple,

I struck you—all the work of your hands—with blight, mildew, and hail, but you didn’t turn to Me”—this is the Lord’s declaration.

“Consider carefully from this day forward; from the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, from the day the foundation of the Lord’s temple was laid; consider it carefully.

I will overturn royal thrones and destroy the power of the Gentile kingdoms. I will overturn chariots and their riders. Horses and their riders will fall, each by his brother’s sword.

On that day”—this is the declaration of the Lord of Hosts—“I will take you, Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, My servant”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“and make you like My signet ring, for I have chosen you.” This is the declaration of the Lord of Hosts.