Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your cieled houses, and this house lie waste? Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your cieled houses, and this house lie waste?
Is it time. It is not time (Haggai 1:2), ye say, to build Yahweh's house; yet how is it that ye make it a fit time not only to build, but to 'dwell' at ease in your own houses?
For you, O ye - rather, for you, you; the repetition marking the shameful contrast between their concern for themselves and their unconcern for God (Maurer). Compare a similar repetition, 1 Samuel 25:24; Zechariah 7:5.
To dwell in your cieled houses? - "cieled," rather, wainscoted or panelled, referring to the walls as well as the ceilings; furnished not only with comfort but luxury, in sad contrast to God's house, not merely unadorned, but the very walls not raised above the foundations. How different David's feeling (2 Samuel 7:2, "See now, I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of God dwelleth within curtains").