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.

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.”

⁷ This is what the Lord Almighty says: “Give careful thought^(E) to your ways. ⁸ Go up into the mountains and bring down timber^(F) and build my house, so that I may take pleasure^(G) in it and be honored,^(H)” says the Lord. ⁹ “You expected much, but see, it turned out to be little.^(I) What you brought home, I blew^(J) away. Why?” declares the Lord Almighty. “Because of my house, which remains a ruin,^(K) while each of you is busy with your own house. ¹⁰ Therefore, because of you the heavens have withheld^(L) their dew^(M) and the earth its crops.^{(N) 11} I called for a drought^(O) on the fields and the mountains,^(P) on the grain, the new wine,^(Q) the olive oil^(R) and everything else the ground produces, on people and livestock, and on all the labor of your hands.^(S)”

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) 17} I struck all the work of your hands^(D) with blight,^(E) mildew and hail,^(F) yet you did not return^(G) to me,’ declares the Lord.^{(H) 18} ‘From this day on, from this twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, give careful thought^(I) to the day when the foundation^(J) of the Lord’s temple was laid. Give careful thought: