¹⁶ When anyone came to a heap^(A) of twenty measures, there were only ten. When anyone went to a wine vat^(B) to draw fifty measures, there were only twenty.^(C)

⁶ You have planted much, but harvested little.^(A) You eat, but never have enough.^(B) You drink, but never have your fill.^(C) You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages,^(D) only to put them in a purse with holes in it.”

² If you do not listen,^(A) and if you do not resolve to honor^(B) my name,” says the Lord Almighty, “I will send a curse^(C) on you, and I will curse your blessings.^(D) Yes, I have already cursed them, because you have not resolved to honor me.

¹⁰ Before that time there were no wages^(A) for people or hire for animals. No one could go about their business safely^(B) because of their enemies, since I had turned everyone against their neighbor. ¹¹ But now I will not deal with the remnant of this people as I did in the past,”^(C) declares the Lord Almighty.

¹² “The seed will grow well, the vine will yield its fruit,^(D) the ground will produce its crops,^(E) and the heavens will drop their dew.^(F) I will give all these things as an inheritance^(G) to the remnant of this people.^(H)

⁹ “You expected much, but see, it turned out to be little.^(A) What you brought home, I blew^(B) away. Why?” declares the Lord Almighty. “Because of my house, which remains a ruin,^(C) while each of you is busy with your own house. ¹⁰ Therefore, because of you the heavens have withheld^(D) their dew^(E) and the earth its crops.^{(F) 11} I called for a drought^(G) on the fields and the mountains,^(H) on the grain, the new wine,^(I) the olive oil^(J) and everything else the ground produces, on people and livestock, and on all the labor of your hands.^(K)”