10. On the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month in the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came to Haggai the prophet:
11. Thus says the Lord of hosts: Ask the priests for a ruling:
12. If someone carries sanctified meat in the fold of a garment and the fold touches bread, soup, wine, oil, or any other food, do they become sanctified? “No,” the priests answered.
13. Then Haggai asked: “If a person defiled from contact with a corpse touches any of these, do they become defiled?” The priests answered, “They become defiled.”
14. Then Haggai replied:So is this people, and so is this nationin my sight—oracle of the Lord—And so is all the work of their hands;what they offer there is defiled.
15. Now reflect, from this day forward—before you set stone to stone in the temple of the Lord,