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.”

⁹ “You expected much, but see, it turned out to be little.^(A) What you brought home, I blew^(B) away. Why?” declares the Lord Almighty. “Because of my house, which remains a ruin,^(C) while each of you is busy with your own house. ¹⁰ Therefore, because of you the heavens have withheld^(D) their dew^(E) and the earth its crops.^{(F) 11} I called for a drought^(G) on the fields and the mountains,^(H) on the grain, the new wine,^(I) the olive oil^(J) and everything else the ground produces, on people and livestock, and on all the labor of your hands.^(K)”

¹⁵ “‘Now give careful thought^(A) to this from this day on^[a]—consider how things were before one stone was laid^(B) on another in the Lord’s temple.^(C)

¹⁷ I struck all the work of your hands^(A) with blight,^(B) mildew and hail,^(C) yet you did not return^(D) to me,’ declares the Lord.^(E)

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.