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📚In the second year of Darius✭ the king, in the sixth month, on the first day of the month, the word of the LORD 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,The excuses the people gave for not finishing the work, the loss their indifference brought
2 📚“This is what the LORD of hosts✭ has spoken, saying✭: This people✭ say, ‘The time has not come, the time for building✭ the LORD’s house.’ ”
3 📚✭Then the word of the LORD came by Haggai the prophet, saying, 4 📚“Is it time for you yourselves to live in your paneled houses, and this house lie in ruins? 5 📚“Now therefore thus says the LORD of hosts: Consider✭ your ways. 6 📚✭You have sown much, but have harvested little. You eat, but do not have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm. And the wage earner earns wages to put into a bag with holes.
7 📚✭“Thus says the LORD of hosts: Consider your ways. 8 📚Go up to the mountain, and bring timber and build the house, and I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified, says the LORD. 9 📚You looked for much, and, see, it came to little. And when you brought it home, I blew on it✭. Why? says the LORD of hosts. Because of my house, which lies in ruins, while every one of you runs to his own house. 10 📚✭Therefore the heavens above you withhold the dew, and the earth withholds her fruit. 11 📚And I called for a drought on the land, and on the mountains, and on the grain, and on the new wine, and on the oil, and on all that the ground produces, and on men, and on cattle, and on all the labour of your hands”.
The people listen and show reverence for God
12 📚Then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, with all the rest of the people✭, obeyed✭ the voice of the LORD their God, and the words of Haggai the prophet, because the LORD their God had sent him, and the people feared the LORD✭.
God’s promise, beginning the work again
13 📚Then Haggai, the LORD’s messenger✭, spoke the LORD’s message to the people, saying, “I am with you✭, says the LORD”. 14 📚And the LORD 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 rest of the people; and they came to work on the house of the LORD of hosts, their God, 15 📚on the twenty-fourth day of the sixth month, in the second year of Darius the king.