The Lord’s people were captured and taken away from the special land the Lord gave them because they followed the bad ones for many hundreds of years instead of following the Lord who made them.

Then when the time was done and the land had rested for all its special resting years, the Lord had the king where they were captured send them home to their special land to build a house for the Lord God there in the place where the other house was ruined and burned down.

 

 

Two years after king Darius sent God’s people back, the Lord sent words to the people.

 

Haggai told them these words from the Lord, You keep saying that it isn’t time yet to build the house for the Lord.

 

 

Is it time for you to build your beautiful houses and paint them beautiful colors and the Lord’s house is just lying here like a ruined pile of rocks?

 

 

The Lord says, Think about what you are doing. You plant lots of seeds for food but only a little bit grows.

 

 

 

You drink a lot but are still thirsty.

 

 

 

 

You put on clothes but you aren’t warm.

 

You work hard to earn money but put it in a bag that has holes in the bottom so that the money falls out.

 

 

 

Think about what you are doing.

Go up to the mountain and cut and bring wood and build this house, says the Lord, and it will make me happy and show My big goodness.

 

 

 

 

You don’t have what you need because My house here is ruined.

 

 

The sky over your head is holding back from dropping its rain and no dew comes from the ground and the earth doesn’t grow her fruit because I called for it to be dry on the mountains

and on the grain and on the wine and on the oil and on the animals and on all that your hands work for.

When the leader of the people and the priest heard these words that God sent Haggai to tell them, the people were scared of God and honored him and bowed down to Him.

 

 

Then the Lord told Haggai to say, I am with you, says the Lord.

And the Lord stirred up the Spirit of the prince and the high priest and all the people and they came and started to build the Lord’s house.

Then when the people saw the start of the Lord’s house, that it wasn’t as big or beautiful as the house Solomon had built for the Lord, all covered with gold and silver, the Lord sent words to the people.

 

The Lord said, How many of you saw the way this house was before? Now this one looks to you like nothing. But be strong, be very strong all you people of the land because I am with you.

 

 

 

 

Don’t be scared.

 

 

I will shake the nations and send My special One to be the King.

 

And I will fill this house with My special brightness, says the Lord of the all the armies of the angels of heaven.

The gold is all mine and the silver is all mine, says the Lord of all the armies of the angels of the heavens and the special brightness of this house you are building will be bigger than the other one.

 

 

And I will give peace, My special quietness, in this place, says the Lord of all the armies of the angels of heaven.

Then words came by Haggai, the one who told the Lord’s words to the people that said, Ask the priest if the dirty thing touches the clean, will it be clean? Or dirty? The priest said, It will be dirty.

 

From now on, says the Lord, I will make everything clean even if it touches something dirty and I will make everything grow good and fat and lots of it.

 

 

 

From this day on, I will bless you and make it very good.

I will shake the heavens and the earth and I will stop the ruling of the bad ones and get rid of them all with all their swords and chariots, the ones who are hurting everyone.

But the Lord told the prince, the one who wanted to do everything right like the Lord said, I will make you be the boss because you are the one I pick, says the Lord of all the armies of the heavens.