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)

² If you will not listen, if you will not lay it to heart to give glory to my name, says the Lord of hosts, then I will send the curse on you, and I will curse your blessings; indeed, I have already cursed them^[a] because you do not lay it to heart.^(A)

¹⁰ For before those days there were no wages for people or for animals, nor was there any safety from the foe for those who went out or came in, and I set them all against one another.^(A)

⁴ I have sent it out, says the Lord of hosts, and it shall enter the house of the thief and the house of anyone who swears falsely by my name, and it shall abide in that house and consume it, both timber and stones.”^(A)