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

² So speaks Jehovah of hosts, saying, This people says, The time has not come, the time for the house of Jehovah to be built.

³ And the word of Jehovah was by Haggai the prophet, saying,

⁴ Is it time for you yourselves to live in your finished houses, and this house to lie waste?

⁵ And now, so says Jehovah of hosts: Set your heart on your ways!

⁶ You have sown much, and bring in little; you eat, but are not satisfied; you drink, but not to be filled; you dress, but there is no warmth to one. Yea, he who sells himself sells himself for a bag of holes.

⁷ So says Jehovah of hosts: Set your heart on your ways.

⁸ Go up the mountain and bring wood and build this house. And I will be pleased with it, and I will be glorified, says Jehovah.

⁹ You looked for much, and, behold, little! And when you brought it home, then I blew on it. Why, declares Jehovah of hosts? Because of My house that is ruined, and you, each man, run to his own house.

¹⁰ On account of this, the heavens above you have held back the dew, and the earth is held back from her produce.

¹¹ And I called for a drought in the land, and on the mountains, and on the grain, and on the new wine, and on the oil, and on that which the ground produces, and on man, and on livestock, and on all the labor of your hands.

¹² Then Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, and Joshua, the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and all the remnant of the people, obeyed the voice of Jehovah their God, and the words of Haggai the prophet, as Jehovah their God had sent him. And the people feared before Jehovah.

¹³ And Haggai, the messenger of Jehovah, spoke the message of Jehovah to the people, saying, I am with you, says Jehovah.

¹⁴ And Jehovah stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua, the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people. And they came and worked on the house of Jehovah of hosts, their God,

¹⁵ in the twenty-fourth day of the sixth month, in the second year of Darius the king.