Study Desk

"You have sown much, only to harvest little; you eat, but there is not enough to be satisfied; you drink, but there is not enough to become drunk; you put on clothing, but there is not enough for anyone to get warm; and the one who earns, earns wages to put into a money bag full of holes."

"You start an ambitious project, but behold, it comes to little; when you bring it home, I blow it away. Why?" declares the LORD of armies. "It is because of My house which remains desolate, while each of you runs to his own house.

'But now take courage, Zerubbabel,' declares the LORD, 'take courage also, Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and all you people of the land take courage,' declares the LORD, 'and work; for I am with you,' declares the LORD of armies.

'But now, do consider from this day onward: before one stone was placed on another in the temple of the LORD,

"Do not be like your fathers, to whom the former prophets proclaimed, saying, 'This is what the LORD of armies says: "Return now from your evil ways and from your evil deeds."' But they did not listen or pay attention to Me," declares the LORD.

"But did My words and My statutes, which I commanded My servants the prophets, not overtake your fathers? Then they repented and said, 'Just as the LORD of armies planned to do to us in accordance with our ways and our deeds, so He has dealt with us.'"'"

"But I am very angry with the nations who are carefree; for while I was only a little angry, they furthered the disaster."

And I said, "What are these coming to do?" And he said, "These are the horns that have scattered Judah so that no one lifts up his head; but these craftsmen have come to frighten them, to throw down the horns of the nations who have lifted up their horns against the land of Judah in order to scatter it."

'But I,' declares the LORD, 'will be a wall of fire to her on all sides, and I will be the glory in her midst.'"

Then he said to me, "This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel, saying, 'Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,' says the LORD of armies.

"For who has shown contempt for the day of small things? But these seven will rejoice when they see the plumb line in the hand of Zerubbabel—they are the eyes of the LORD roaming throughout the earth."

"But they refused to pay attention, and turned a stubborn shoulder and plugged their ears from hearing.

"but I scattered them with a storm wind among all the nations whom they did not know. So the land was desolated behind them so that no one went back and forth, since they made the pleasant land desolate."

'But now I will not treat the remnant of this people as in the former days,' declares the LORD of armies.

But I will camp around My house because of an army, Because of him who passes by and returns; And no oppressor will pass over them anymore, For now I have seen with My eyes.

"For I will no longer have compassion for the inhabitants of the land," declares the LORD; "but behold, I will let the people fall, each into another's power and into the power of his king; and they will crush the land, and I will not rescue them from their power."

And I said to them, "If it is good in your sight, give me my wages; but if not, never mind!" So they weighed out thirty shekels of silver as my wages.

"For behold, I am going to raise up a shepherd in the land who will not care for the perishing, seek the scattered, heal the broken, or provide for the one who is exhausted, but will devour the flesh of the fat sheep and tear off their hoofs.

"On that day," declares the LORD, "I will strike every horse with confusion and its rider with insanity. But I will watch over the house of Judah, while I strike every horse of the peoples with blindness.

but he will say, 'I am not a prophet; I am a cultivator of the ground, because a man sold me as a slave in my youth.'