25 But in the fifth year you may eat of its fruit, to increase its yield for you: I am the Lord your God.
3 x“If you walk in my statutes and observe my commandments and do them, 4 then yI will give you your rains in their season, and the land shall yield its increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit.
9 Honor the Lord with your wealth
and with qthe firstfruits of all your produce;
10 then your rbarns will be filled with plenty,
and your vats will be bursting with wine.
Cast Your Bread upon the Waters
1 fCast your bread upon the waters,
gfor you will find it after many days.
2 hGive a portion to iseven, or even to eight,
jfor you know not what disaster may happen on earth.
4 g“Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, while hthis house lies in ruins? 5 Now, therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts: iConsider your ways. 6 jYou have sown much, and harvested little. kYou eat, but you never have enough; you drink, but you never have your fill. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm. And he who learns wages does so to put them into a bag with holes.
9 jYou looked for much, and behold, it came to little. And when you brought it home, oI blew it away. Why? declares the Lord of hosts. Because of my house hthat lies in ruins, while each of you busies himself with his own house. 10 Therefore pthe heavens above you have withheld the dew, and the earth has withheld its produce. 11 And qI have called for a drought on the land and the hills, on rthe grain, the new wine, the oil, on what the ground brings forth, on man and beast, and son all their labors.”
18 bConsider from this day onward, ffrom the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month. Since gthe day that the foundation of the Lord’s temple was laid, bconsider: 19 hIs the seed yet in the barn? Indeed, the vine, the fig tree, the pomegranate, and the olive tree have yielded nothing. But from this day on iI will bless you.”
8 Will man rob God? Yet you are robbing me. xBut you say, ‘How have we robbed you?’ yIn your tithes and contributions. 9 zYou are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me, the whole nation of you. 10 aBring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby bput me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open cthe windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need.
