now from your evil ways, and from your evil
doings;’ but they did not hear, nor listen to me, says Yahweh. 5 Your
fathers, where are they? And the prophets, do they live forever? 6 But my
words and my decrees, which I commanded my servants the prophets, didn’t they
overtake your fathers?
“Then they repented and said, ‘Just as Yahweh of Hosts determined to do to
us, according to our ways, and according to our practices, so he has dealt
with us.’” 7 On the twenty-fourth day of the eleventh month, which is the
month Shebat, in the second year of Darius, the word of Yahweh came to
Zechariah the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo, the prophet, saying, 8 “I
had a vision in the night, and, behold, a man riding on a red horse, and he
stood among the myrtle trees that were in a ravine; and behind him there were
red, brown, and white horses. 9 Then I asked, ‘My lord, what are
these?’”
The angel who talked with me said to me, “I will show you what these are.”
10 The man who stood among the myrtle trees answered, “They are the ones
Yahweh has sent to go back and forth through the earth.”
11 They reported to the angel of Yahweh who stood among the myrtle trees,
and said, “We have walked back and forth through the earth, and, behold, all
the earth is at rest and in peace.”
12 Then the angel of Yahweh replied, “O Yahweh of Hosts, how long will you
not have mercy on Jerusalem and on the cities of Judah, against which you
have had indignation these seventy years?”
13 Yahweh answered the angel who talked with me with kind and comforting
words. 14 So the angel who talked with me said to me, “Proclaim, saying,
‘Thus says Yahweh of Hosts: “I am jealous for Jerusalem and for Zion with a
great jealousy. 15 I am very angry with the nations that are at ease; for
I was but a little displeased, but they added to the calamity.”
16 Therefore thus says Yahweh: “I have returned to Jerusalem with mercy.
My house shall be built in it,” says Yahweh of Hosts, “and a line shall be
stretched forth over Jerusalem.”’
17 “Proclaim further, saying, ‘Thus says Yahweh of Hosts: “My cities will
again overflow with prosperity, and Yahweh will again comfort Zion, and will
again choose Jerusalem.”’”
18 I lifted up my eyes, and saw, and, behold, four horns. 19 I asked
the angel who talked with me, “What are these?”
He answered me, “These are the horns which have scattered Judah, Israel, and
Jerusalem.”
20 Yahweh showed me four craftsmen. 21 Then I asked, “What are these
coming to do?”
He said, “These are the horns which scattered Judah, so that no man lifted up
his head; but these have come to terrify them, to cast down the horns of the
nations, which lifted up their horn against the land of Judah to scatter
it.”
World English Bible - Public Domain
