⁶ You have sown much and harvested little; you eat, but you never have enough; you drink, but you never have your fill; you clothe yourselves, but no one is warm; and you that earn wages earn wages to put them into a bag with holes.^(A)

⁹ You have looked for much, but it came to little, and when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why? says the Lord of hosts. Because my house lies in ruins, while all of you hurry off to your own houses.^(A)

⁹ You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me—the whole nation of you! ¹⁰ Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in my house, and thus put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts; see if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you an overflowing blessing.^{(A) 11} I will rebuke the locust^[a] for you, so that it will not destroy the produce of your soil, and your vine in the field shall not be barren, says the Lord of hosts.

³⁸ “You shall carry much seed into the field but shall gather little in, for the locust shall consume it.^{(A) 39} You shall plant vineyards and dress them, but you shall neither drink the wine nor gather the grapes, for the worm shall eat them. ⁴⁰ You shall have olive trees throughout all your territory, but you shall not anoint yourself with the oil, for your olives shall drop off.

¹⁶ how did you fare?^[a] When one came to a heap of twenty measures, there were but ten; when one came to the wine vat to draw fifty measures, there were but twenty.^(A)