10On the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, in the second year of Darius, the word of the LORD came to the prophet Haggai, saying.11This is what the LORD of Hosts says: Ask the priests now, please, for a ruling, saying:12Look, a man carries holy flesh in the fold of his garment, and when he touches bread or stew or wine or oil or any food with his fold—does it become holy? The priests answered and said, No.13Haggai said, "If an unclean person of vital life force contacts all of these—these covenant curse formulas—does it become ritually impure?" And they responded and said, "It becomes ritually impure."14Haggai answered and said, "This is how this people is before me," declares the LORD, "and this is how all the work of their hands is, and what they offer there—it is unclean."15And now, please consider from this day and onward, before one stone is placed upon another in the temple of the LORD.16When one came to a heap of twenty measures, there were only ten. When one came to the winepress to draw out fifty pressings, there were only twenty.17I struck you with blight and with mildew and with hail all the work of your hands, yet there was no you to me, declares the LORD.18Put your heart now from this day and upward, from the day of the twenty-fourth to the ninth, from the day that the temple of the LORD was founded; put your heart.19Is the seed still in the barn? And up to the vine, the fig tree, the pomegranate, and the olive tree—it has not borne fruit. From this day I will bless you.