In the second year of Daryavesh the king, in the sixth month, on the first day of the month, the word of the Lord came by Ḥaggay the prophet to Zerubbavel the son of She᾽alti᾽el, governor of Yehuda, and to Yehoshua the son of Yehożadaq, the high priest, saying,

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

Then the word of the Lord came by Ḥaggay the prophet, saying,

Is it time for you, yourselves, to dwell in your well timbered houses, whilst this house lies waste?

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

You have sown much, and bring in little; you eat, but you have not enough; you drink, but you are not filled with drink; you clothe yourselves, but no one is warm; and he that earns wages earns wages to put them into a bag with holes.

Thus says the Lord of hosts; Consider your ways.

Go 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.

You looked for much, and, lo, it came to little; and when you brought it home, I did blow upon it. Why? says the Lord of hosts. Because of my house that lies waste, and everyone of you runs to his own house.

Therefore the heaven over you is restrained from giving dew, and the earth is restrained from giving its produce.

And 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 labour of the hands.

Then Zerubbavel the son of Shalti᾽el, and Yehoshua the son of Yehożadaq, the high priest, with all the remnant of the people, obeyed the voice of the Lord their God, and the words of Ḥaggay the prophet, as the Lord their God had sent him, and the people feared before the Lord.

Then Ḥaggay the Lord’s messenger spoke the Lord’s message to the people, saying, I am with you, says the Lord.

And the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbavel the son of Shalti᾽el, governor of Yehuda, and the spirit of Yehoshua the son of Yehożadaq, the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people; and they came and worked in the house of the Lord of hosts, their God,

On the twenty fourth day of the sixth month, in the second year of Daryavesh the king.