Haggai 1

World English Bible 86 include this book

1 In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, in the first day of the month, the LORD’s word 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,

2 “This is what the LORD of Armies says: These people say, ‘The time hasn’t yet come, the time for the LORD’s house to be built.’”

3 Then the LORD’s word came by Haggai the prophet, saying,

4 “Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, while this house lies waste?

5 Now therefore this is what the LORD of Armies says: ‘Consider your ways.

6 You have sown much, and bring in little. You eat, but you don’t have enough. You drink, but you aren’t filled with drink. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm; and he who earns wages earns wages to put them into a bag with holes in it.’

7 “This is what the LORD of Armies says: ‘Consider your ways.

8 Go up to the mountain, bring wood, and build the house. I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified,” says the LORD.

9 “You looked for much, and, behold, it came to little; and when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why?” says the LORD of Armies, “Because of my house that lies waste, while each of you is busy with his own house.

10 Therefore for your sake the heavens withhold the dew, and the earth withholds its fruit.

11 I called for a drought on the land, on the mountains, on the grain, on the new wine, on the oil, on that which the ground produces, on men, on livestock, and on all the labor of the hands.”

12 Then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel and Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, with all the remnant of the people, obeyed the LORD their God’s voice, and the words of Haggai the prophet, as the LORD their God had sent him; and the people feared the LORD.

13 Then Haggai, the LORD’s messenger, spoke the LORD’s message to the people, saying, “I am with you,” says the LORD.

14 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 remnant of the people; and they came and worked on the house of the LORD of Armies, their God,

15 in the twenty-fourth day of the month, in the sixth month, in the second year of Darius the king.

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No place is named in this book. Shown instead is where it is thought to have been written.

Where this was written

Jerusalem attested Concerns the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem.

When this was written

The traditions broadly agree on this one.

Broad agreement: 520 BC–520 BC Haggai
Every oracle is dated to the second year of Darius.

Elsewhere in the world

Events overlapping the period this book is dated to (520 BC–520 BC).

1200 BC–400 BC Olmec civilisation Mesoamerica
The earliest major Mesoamerican civilisation, known for colossal stone heads and an early calendar.
1070 BC–350 AD The kingdom of Kush Africa
A Nubian power on the upper Nile that ruled Egypt itself as its twenty-fifth dynasty.
600 BC–500 BC Daoism takes shape in China China
The teaching associated with Laozi, emphasising harmony with the natural order.
570 BC–495 BC Pythagoras Greece
Mathematician and mystic whose school treated number as the structure of reality.
563 BC–483 BC Life of Siddhartha Gautama India
The founder of Buddhism taught in the Ganges plain, roughly contemporary with the Judean exile.
550 BC–330 BC The Persian empire founded Persia
Cyrus and his successors ruled from the Aegean to the Indus, the largest empire the world had yet seen.
551 BC–479 BC Life of Confucius China
Chinese philosopher whose teaching on ethics and governance shaped East Asian thought for millennia.

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