‘Who among you survivors saw the former splendor of this temple? How does it look to you now? Isn’t it nothing by comparison?

‘You expected a large harvest, but instead there was little, and when you brought it home it disappeared right away. Why?’ asks the Lord who rules over all. ‘Because my temple remains in ruins, thanks to each of you favoring his own house!

Now therefore reflect carefully on the recent past, before one stone was laid on another in the Lord’s temple.

‘Think carefully about the past: from today, the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, to the day work on the temple of the Lord was resumed, think about it.