Passage
Thus speaketh Jehovah of hosts, saying, This people say, It is not the time [for us] to come, the time for Jehovah`s house to be built.
Haggai 1:2 (ASV)
Nearby Context
Haggai 1:1 In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, in the first day of the month, came the word of Jehovah by Haggai the prophet unto Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, saying,
Haggai 1:2 Thus speaketh Jehovah of hosts, saying, This people say, It is not the time [for us] to come, the time for Jehovah`s house to be built.
Haggai 1:3 Then came the word of Jehovah by Haggai the prophet, saying,
Haggai 1:4 Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your ceiled houses, while this house lieth waste?
Study Lenses
The verse centers on "thus", "speaketh", "jehovah", "hosts", "saying", "people", "time", and "come". It is saying that the verse draws attention to "thus" and "speaketh", so its meaning should be read from those terms before moving to application.
The nearby context moves from verse 1's "In the second year of Darius the..." into verse 3's "Then came the word of Jehovah by...", so "thus" and "speaketh" belong inside that flow. In Haggai context, the local focus is covenant, worship, and faithfulness.
A plain takeaway is to answer the verse's own emphasis on "thus" and "speaketh" with trust shaped by these words, not by a vague optimism outside the passage.