A Call to Rebuild the Temple

(Ezra 5:1-5)

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. 3Then came the word of the LORD by Haggai the prophet, saying, 4Is it time for you, O you, to dwell in your paneled houses, and this house lie waste? 5Now therefore thus said the LORD of hosts; Consider your ways. 6You 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 you, but there is none warm; and he that earns wages earns wages to put it into a bag with holes.

7Thus said the LORD of hosts; Consider your 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, said the LORD. 9You looked for much, and, see it came to little; and when you brought it home, I did blow on it. Why? said the LORD of hosts. Because of my house that is waste, and you run every man to his own house. 10Therefore the heaven over you is stayed from dew, and the earth is stayed from her fruit. 11And I called for a drought on the land, and on the mountains, and on the corn, and on the new wine, and on the oil, and on that which the ground brings forth, and on men, and on cattle, and on all the labor of the hands.

The People Obey

12Then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, with all the remnant of the people, obeyed the voice of the LORD their God, and the words of Haggai the prophet, as the LORD their God had sent him, and the people did fear before the LORD. 13Then spoke Haggai the LORD's messenger in the LORD's message to the people, saying, I am with you, said the LORD. 14And the LORD stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people; and they came and did work in the house of the LORD of hosts, their God, 15In the four and twentieth day of the sixth month, in the second year of Darius the king.