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¹⁰ For the glory of this house shall be great, the latter more than the former, saith the Lord Almighty: and in this place will I give peace, saith the Lord Almighty, even peace of soul for a possession to every one that builds, to raise up this temple.¹¹ On the four and twentieth day of the ninth month, in the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came to Aggaeus the prophet, saying, ¹² Thus saith the Lord Almighty; Inquire now of the priest concerning the law, saying, ¹³ If a man should take holy flesh in the skirt of his garment, and the skirt of his garment should touch bread, or pottage, or wine, or oil, or any meat, shall it be holy? And the priests answered and said, No. ¹⁴ And Aggaeus said, If a defiled person who is unclean by reason of a dead body, touch any of these, shall it be defiled? And the priests answered and said, It shall be defiled. ¹⁵ And Aggaeus answered and said, So is this people, and so is this nation before me, saith the Lord; and so are all the works of their hands: and whosoever shall approach them, shall be defiled [because of their early burdens: they shall be pained because of their toils; and ye have hated him that reproved in the gates]. ¹⁶ And now consider, I pray you, from this day and beforetime, before they laid a stone on a stone in the temple of the Lord, what manner of men ye were. ¹⁷ When ye cast into the corn-bin twenty measures of barley, and there were only ten measures of barley: and ye went to the vat to draw out fifty measures, and there were but twenty. ¹⁸ I smote you with barrenness, and with blasting, and all the works of your hands with hail; yet ye returned not to me, saith the Lord. ¹⁹ Set your hearts now to think from this day and upward, from the four and twentieth day of the ninth month, even from the day when the foundation of the temple of the Lord was laid;

²⁰ consider in your hearts, whether this shall be known on the corn-floor, and whether yet the vine, and the fig-tree, and the pomegranate, and the olive-trees that bear no fruit are with you: from this day will I bless you.²¹ And the word of the Lord came the second time to Aggaeus the prophet, on the four and twentieth day of the month, saying, ²² Speak to Zorobabel the son of Salathiel, of the tribe of Juda, saying, ²³ and I will overthrow the thrones of kings, and I will destroy the power of the kings of the nations; and I will overthrow chariots and riders; and the horses and their riders shall come down, every one by the sword striving against his brother.