“‘Is this a time for you to live in your paneled houses, when this House lies waste?’ So now HaShem of hosts said, ‘Consider your ways. You have sown much but brought in little, you eat but do not have enough; you drink but are not filled with drink, you clothe yourselves but none of you are warm. He who earns wages earns them for a bag full of holes. So go to the hill country, bring wood and rebuild the House: then I shall take pleasure in it and be glorified,’ said HaShem. The Lord of hosts says this: ‘Reflect carefully how things have gone for you. The abundance you expected proved to be little. When you brought the harvest in, I blew upon it and spoiled it. Why? Because My House lies in ruins while you run, every man, for his own house. So the sky withheld the rain and the earth withheld its produce. I called for a drought upon the land and upon the mountains, upon the corn and upon the wine, and upon the oil and all the yield which the ground brings forth, and upon man and upon cattle and all the labor of their hands,’ said HaShem.”
“To all the remnant of the people . . . ‘Who is there left among you that saw this House in its former glory? How do you see it now? Is not such a one as nothing in your eyes? Yet now be strong . . . be strong all you people of the land and work for I am with you,’ said HaShem . . . ‘My Spirit abides among you, be not afraid.’ For thus said HaShem of hosts: ‘Yet once, it is a little while and I will shake the heavens and the earth, and the sea and the dry land. And I will shake all nations and the choicest things of all nations shall come, and I will fill this House with glory. Mine is the silver and mine is the gold!’ – it is HaShem who speaks. ‘The new of this House is going to surpass the old and in this place I will give peace,’ said HaShem” (Hg 1:4-11, 2:3-9).
