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. ¹⁹ I am giving you a promise now while the seed is still in the barn.^[b] You have not yet harvested your grain, and your grapevines, fig trees, pomegranates, and olive trees have not yet produced their crops. But from this day onward I will bless you.”