Study Desk

And so, because of you, Jerusalem will be plowed under and left in ruins. Thorns will cover the mountain where the temple now stands.

I am the Lord , and it makes sense to respect my power to punish. So listen to my message for the city of Jerusalem:

I feel so empty inside— like someone starving for grapes or figs, after the vines and trees have all been picked clean.

I have sinned against the Lord . And so I must endure his anger, until he comes to my defense. But I know that I will see him making things right for me and leading me to the light.

Lead your people, Lord ! Come and be our shepherd. Grasslands surround us, but we live in a forest. So lead us to Bashan and Gilead, and let us find pasture as we did long ago.

So don't plot against the Lord ! He wipes out his enemies, and they never revive.

You will still go up in flames and be cut down by swords that will wipe you out like wheat attacked by grasshoppers. So, go ahead and increase like a swarm of locusts!

They make fun of rulers and laugh at fortresses, while building dirt mounds so they can capture cities.

But you can't stand sin or wrong. So don't sit by in silence while they gobble down people who are better than they are.

Then an enemy comes along and takes them captive with hooks and nets. It makes him so happy

But the Lord All-Powerful sends up in flames what nations and people work so hard to gain.

And so, I swear by my very life that Moab and Ammon will end up like Sodom and Gomorrah— covered with thornbushes and salt pits forever. Then my people who survive will take their land.

On the first day of the sixth month of the second year that Darius was king of Persia, the Lord told Haggai the prophet to speak his message to the governor of Judah and to the high priest. So Haggai told Governor Zerubbabel and High Priest Joshua

But first, go to the hills and get wood for my temple, so I can take pride in it and be worshiped there.

And so, at my command everything will become barren—your farmland and pastures, your vineyards and olive trees, your animals and you yourselves. All your hard work will be for nothing.

So the Lord God All-Powerful made everyone eager to work on his temple, especially Zerubbabel and Joshua.

So the Lord told Haggai to say: That's how it is with this entire nation. Everything you do and every sacrifice you offer is unacceptable to me.

Today you have completed the foundation for my temple, so listen to what your future will be like.

But my warnings and my words spoken by the prophets caught up with your ancestors. So they turned back to me and said, " Lord All-Powerful, you have punished us for our sins, just as you had planned."

So the angel told me to announce: I, the Lord All-Powerful, am very protective of Jerusalem.