Haggai 2:14 (LSB)

Passage

Then Haggai answered and said, “‘So is this people. And so is this nation before Me,’ declares Yahweh, ‘and so is every work of their hands; and what they bring near to Me there is unclean.

Nearby Context

Haggai 2:12 If a man carries holy meat in the fold of his garment and touches bread with this fold or cooked food, wine, oil, or any other food, will it become holy?’” And the priests answered, “No.”

Haggai 2:13 Then Haggai said, “If one who is unclean from a corpse touches any of these, will the latter become unclean?” And the priests answered, “It will become unclean.”

Haggai 2:14 Then Haggai answered and said, “‘So is this people. And so is this nation before Me,’ declares Yahweh, ‘and so is every work of their hands; and what they bring near to Me there is unclean.

Haggai 2:15 But now, oh set your heart to consider from this day onward: from before one stone was set on another in the temple of Yahweh,

Haggai 2:16 from when it was that one came to a grain heap of twenty measures, then there would be only ten; and from when one came to the wine vat to draw fifty troughs full, then there would be only twenty.

Study Lenses

The verse centers on "haggai", "answered", "said", "people", "nation", "before", "declares", and "yahweh". It is saying that the verse draws attention to "haggai" and "answered", so its meaning should be read from those terms before moving to application.

The nearby context moves from verse 13's "Then Haggai said If one who is..." into verse 15's "But now oh set your heart to...", so "haggai" and "answered" 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 "haggai" and "answered" with trust shaped by these words, not by a vague optimism outside the passage.