⁵ This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies says: Look at what’s happening to you!

¹⁷ “When he finally came to his senses, he said to himself, ‘At home even the hired servants have food enough to spare, and here I am dying of hunger!

⁷ “This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies says: Look at what’s happening to you!

¹⁵ Look at what was happening to you before you began to lay the foundation of the Lord’s Temple. ¹⁶ When you hoped for a twenty-bushel crop, you harvested only ten. When you expected to draw fifty gallons from the winepress, you found only twenty. ¹⁷ I sent blight and mildew and hail to destroy everything you worked so hard to produce. Even so, you refused to return to me, says the Lord.

¹⁸ “Think about this eighteenth day of December, the day^[a] when the foundation of the Lord’s Temple was laid. Think carefully.

⁵ Examine yourselves to see if your faith is genuine. Test yourselves. Surely you know that Jesus Christ is among you^[a]; if not, you have failed the test of genuine faith.

²¹ But those who paid no attention to the word of the Lord left theirs out in the open.

²³ Pharaoh returned to his palace and put the whole thing out of his mind.

⁴ Pay careful attention to your own work, for then you will get the satisfaction of a job well done, and you won’t need to compare yourself to anyone else.