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.'

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.

Who among you hath been left that saw this house in its former honour? And what are ye seeing it now? Is it not, compared with it, as nothing in your eyes?

The thing that I covenanted with you, In your coming forth from Egypt, And My Spirit is remaining in your midst, fear not.

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.'