The Command to Build God’s House

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

2Thus speaks the Lord of hosts, saying, This people say, The time is not come, the time that the Lord’s house should be built.   Jehovah^s.f. Tsebaoth

3Then came the word of the Lord by Haggai the prophet, saying,

4Is it time for you^p, O you^p, to dwell in your^p ceiled houses, and this house lie waste?   paneled; be desolate

5Now therefore thus says the Lord of hosts; Consider your^p ways.

6You^p have sown much, and bring in little; you^p eat, but you^p have not enough; you^p drink, but you^p are not filled with drink; you^p clothe you^p, but there is none warm; and he that earns wages earns wages to put it into a bag with holes.

7Thus says the Lord of hosts; Consider your^p ways.

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

9You^p looked for much, and, lo, it came to little; and when you^p brought it home, I did blow upon it. Why? says the Lord of hosts. Because of My house that is waste, and you^p run every man to his own house.   desolate

10Therefore the heaven over you^p is stayed from dew, and the earth is stayed from her fruit.   restrained, withheld

11And I called for a drought upon the land, and upon the mountains, and upon the corn, and upon the new wine, and upon the oil, and upon that which the ground brings forth, and upon men, and upon cattle, and upon all the labor of the hands.