It's the year 520 B.C. Slowly but surely, for the past two decades, the descendants of the Israelites who were taken captive by Babylon almost a hundred years earlier have been returning to their homeland and rebuilding their cities.

Yet the Temple remains desolate - little more than a looted rubble where the palatial work of King Solomon once stood. Meanwhile the Israelites labor on their own houses and farms, in desperation trying to carve out enough living to get by. It seems impossible to find concern for the Temple when there are more immediate problems at hand.

And into this circumstance, God speaks.