Haggai

Haggai has two chapters and a very concrete message. The people had come back from exile, started rebuilding the temple and stopped — meanwhile each one looked after his own house. The prophet asks an uncomfortable question: "is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, while this house lies waste?" And he points to the result: much labor, little harvest, wages put into a bag with holes. The people's response is rare in prophetic literature: they obey, and the work restarts within weeks. The book also offers a word of encouragement to those weeping because they remembered the former temple: the glory of the new will be greater than the old.