1. In 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 the hand of Haggai the prophet unto Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, saying,
2. Thus speaketh the Lord of the hosts, saying, This people say, The time is not yet come, the time to build the house of the Lord.
3. Then came the word of the Lord by the hand of Haggai the prophet, saying,
4. Do you have time, all of you, to dwell in your panelled houses, and this house is deserted?
5. Now therefore thus hath the Lord of the hosts said; Consider your ways.
6. Ye have sown much and bring in little; ye eat, but ye are not filled; ye drink, but ye are not satisfied; ye clothe yourselves, but you are not warm; and he that is a hireling receives his wages in a bag with holes.
7. Thus hath the Lord of the hosts said, Consider your ways.
8. Go up to the mountain and bring wood and build the house; and I will place my will in her, and I will be glorified, said the Lord.
9. Ye look for much and find little; and when ye lock it up at home, I shall blow upon it. Why? said the Lord of the hosts. Because my house is deserted, and ye run each one of you unto his own house.
10. Therefore the rain of the heavens over you is held back, and the earth has held back her fruits.
11. And I called for a drought upon this land and upon the mountains and upon the wheat and upon the wine and upon the oil and upon that which the earth brings forth and upon the men, and upon the beasts and upon every labour of hands.