¹⁶ Through all that time [the harvests have not fulfilled expectations, for] when one has gone expecting to find a heap [of sheaves] of twenty measures, there were but ten; when he has gone to the wine vat to draw out fifty bucketfuls from the press, there were only twenty.

¹⁷ I smote you with blight and with mildew and with hail in all [the products of] the labors of your hands; yet you returned not nor were converted to Me, says the Lord.

¹⁸ Consider, I pray you, from this day onward, from the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, even from the day that the foundation of the Lord’s temple was [re]laid, consider this: