Your fathers, where are they? and the prophets, do they go on living for ever?

But my words and my orders, which I gave to my servants the prophets, have they not overtaken your fathers? and turning back they said, As it was the purpose of the Lord of armies to do to us, in reward for our ways and our doings, so has he done.

Then the angel of the Lord, answering, said, O Lord of armies, how long will it be before you have mercy on Jerusalem and on the towns of Judah against which your wrath has been burning for seventy years?

And I am very angry with the nations who are living untroubled: for when I was only a little angry, they made the evil worse.

And again let your voice be loud and say, This is what the Lord of armies has said: My towns will again be overflowing with good things, and again the Lord will give comfort to Zion and take Jerusalem for himself.

And lifting up my eyes I saw four horns.

And the Lord gave me a vision of four metal-workers.

Then I said, What have these come to do? And he said, These are the horns which sent Judah in flight, and kept him from lifting up his head: but these men have come to send fear on them and to put down the nations who are lifting up their horns against the land of Judah to send it in flight.

For I, says the Lord, will be a wall of fire round about her, and I will be the glory inside her.

Ho, ho! go in flight from the land of the north, says the Lord: for I have sent you far and wide to the four winds of heaven, says the Lord.

For this is what the Lord of armies has said: In the way of glory he has sent me to the nations which have taken your goods: for anyone touching you is touching what is most dear to him.

For at the shaking of my hand over them, their goods will be taken by those who were their servants: and you will see that the Lord of armies has sent me.

Give songs of joy, O daughter of Zion: for I come, and I will make my resting-place among you, says the Lord.

Let all flesh be quiet and make no sound before the Lord: for he is awake and has come from his holy resting-place.

And the Lord said to the Satan, May the Lord's word be sharp against you, O Satan, the word of the Lord who has taken Jerusalem for himself: is this not a burning branch pulled out of the fire?

Give ear now, O Joshua, the high priest, you and your friends who are seated before you; for these are men who are a sign: for see, I will let my servant the Branch be seen.

For see, the stone which I have put before Joshua; on one stone are seven eyes: see, the design cut on it will be my work, says the Lord of armies, and I will take away the sin of that land in one day.

For who has had a poor opinion of the day of small things? for they will be glad when they see the weighted measuring-line in the hand of Zerubbabel. Then he said in answer to me, These seven lights are the eyes of the Lord which go quickly up and down through all the earth.

Then he said to me, This is the curse which goes out over the face of all the land: for long enough has every thief gone without punishment, and long enough has every taker of false oaths gone without punishment.

And he said to me, To make a house for her in the land of Shinar: and they will make a place ready, and put her there in the place which is hers.

And again lifting up my eyes I saw four war-carriages coming out from between the two mountains; and the mountains were mountains of brass.

And the angel, answering, said to me, These go out to the four winds of heaven from their place before the Lord of all the earth.

And the crown will be for grace to Heldai and Tobijah and Jedaiah and the son of Zephaniah, to keep their memory living in the house of the Lord.

And those who are far away will come and be builders in the Temple of the Lord, and it will be clear to you that the Lord of armies has sent me to you.

Now they of Beth-el had sent Sharezer and Regem-melech to make a request for grace from the Lord,

Say to all the people of the land and to the priests, When you went without food and gave yourselves to grief in the fifth and the seventh months for these seventy years, did you ever do it because of me?

And when you are feasting and drinking, are you not doing it only for yourselves?

This is what the Lord of armies has said: Let your judging be upright and done in good faith, let every man have mercy and pity for his brother:

But with a storm-wind I sent them in flight among all the nations of whom they had no knowledge. So the land was waste after them, so that no man went through or came back: for they had made waste the desired land.

This is what the Lord of armies has said: Let your hands be strong, you who are now hearing these words from the mouths of the prophets, that is to say, in the days when the base of the house of the Lord of armies has been put in place for the building of the house, that is the Temple.

For before those days there was no payment for a man's work, or for the use of a beast, and there was no peace for him who went out or him who came in, because of the attacker: for I had every man turned against his neighbour.

For I will let the seed of peace be planted; the vine will give her fruit and the land will give her increase and the heavens will give their dew; and I will give to the rest of this people all these things for their heritage.

And it will come about that, as you were a curse among the nations, O children of Judah and children of Israel, so I will give you salvation and you will be a blessing: have no fear and let your hands be strong.

For this is what the Lord of armies has said: As it was my purpose to do evil to you when your fathers made me angry, says the Lord of armies, and my purpose was not changed:

So in these days it is again my purpose to do good to Jerusalem and to the children of Judah: have no fear.

Let no one have any evil thought in his heart against his neighbour; and have no love for false oaths: for all these things are hated by me, says the Lord.

This is what the Lord of armies has said: The times of going without food in the fourth month and in the fifth and the seventh and the tenth months, will be for the people of Judah times of joy and happy meetings; so be lovers of good faith and of peace.

And the people of one town go to another and say, Let us certainly go with a request for grace from the Lord, and to give worship to the Lord of armies, then I will go with you.

And great peoples and strong nations will come to give worship to the Lord of armies in Jerusalem and to make requests for grace from the Lord.

This is what the Lord of armies has said: In those days, ten men from all the languages of the nations will put out their hands and take a grip of the skirt of him who is a Jew, saying, We will go with you, for it has come to our ears that God is with you.

A word of the Lord: The Lord has come to the land of Hadrach, and Damascus is his resting-place: for the towns of Aram are the Lord's,

And Tyre made for herself a strong place, and got together silver like dust and the best gold like the earth of the streets.

See, the Lord will take away her heritage, overturning her power in the sea; and she will be burned up with fire.

Ashkelon will see it with fear, and Gaza, bent with pain; and Ekron, for her hope will be shamed: and the king will be cut off from Gaza, and Ashkelon will be unpeopled.

And I will take away his blood from his mouth, and his disgusting things from between his teeth; and some of his people will be kept for our God: and he will be as a family in Judah, and Ekron as one living in Jerusalem.

And I will put my forces in position round my house, so that there may be no coming and going: and no cruel master will again go through them: for now I have seen his trouble.

And as for you, because of the blood of your agreement, I have sent out your prisoners from the deep hole in which there is no water.

For I have made Judah a bow bent for my use, I have made Ephraim the arrows of the bow; I will make your sons, O Zion, take up arms against your sons, O Greece, and will make you like the sword of a man of war.

The Lord of armies will be a cover for them; and they will overcome, crushing under foot the armed men; they will take their blood for drink like wine: they will be full like the sides of the altar.

And the Lord their God will be their saviour in that day, giving them food like the flock of his people: for they will be like the jewels of a crown shining over his land.

For how good it is and how beautiful! grain will make the young men strong and new wine the virgins.

Make your request to the Lord for rain in the time of the spring rains, even to the Lord who makes the thunder-flames; and he will give them showers of rain, to every man grass in the field.

For the images have said what is not true, and the readers of signs have seen deceit; they have given accounts of false dreams, they give comfort to no purpose: so they go out of the way like sheep, they are troubled because they have no keeper.

My wrath is burning against the keepers of the flock, and I will send punishment on the he-goats: for the Lord of armies takes care of his flock, the people of Judah, and will make them like the horse of his pride in the fight.

And I will make the children of Judah strong, and I will be the saviour of the children of Joseph, and I will make them come back again, for I have had mercy on them: they will be as if I had not given them up: for I am the Lord their God and I will give them an answer.

With the sound of the pipe I will get them together; for I have given the price to make them free: and they will be increased as they were increased.

Though I had them planted among the peoples, they will keep me in mind in far countries: and they will take care of their children and will come back.

And I will make them come back out of the land of Egypt, and will get them together out of Assyria; and I will take them into the land of Gilead, and it will not be wide enough for them.

Let your doors be open, O Lebanon, so that fire may be burning among your cedars.

Give a cry of grief, O fir-tree, for the fall of the cedar, because the great ones have been made low: give cries of grief, O you oaks of Bashan, for the strong trees of the wood have come down.

The sound of the crying of the keepers of the flock! for their glory is made waste: the sound of the loud crying of the young lions! for the pride of Jordan is made waste.

Whose owners put them to death and have no sense of sin; and those who get a price for them say, May the Lord be praised for I have much wealth: and the keepers of the flock have no pity for them.

For I will have no more pity for the people of the land, says the Lord; but I will give up everyone into his neighbour's hand and into the hand of his king: and they will make the land waste, and I will not keep them safe from their hands.

So I took care of the flock of death, for those who made profit out of the flock; and I took for myself two rods, naming one Beautiful, and the other Bands; and I took care of the flock.

And in one month I put an end to the three keepers of the flock; for my soul was tired of them, and their souls were disgusted with me.

And I said, I will not take care of you: If death comes to any, let death be its fate; if any is cut off, let it be cut off; and let the rest take one another's flesh for food.

For see, I will put a sheep-keeper over the land, who will have no care for that which is cut off, and will not go in search of the wanderers, or make well what is broken, and he will not give food to that which is ill, but he will take for his food the flesh of the fat, and let their feet be broken.

See, I will make Jerusalem a cup of shaking fear to all the peoples round about, when Jerusalem is shut in.

And it will come about in that day that I will make Jerusalem a stone of great weight for all the peoples; all those who take it up will be badly wounded; and all the nations of the earth will come together against it.

In that day, says the Lord, I will put fear into every horse and make every horseman go off his head: and my eyes will be open on the people of Judah, and I will make every horse of the peoples blind.

In that day I will make the families of Judah like a pot with fire in it among trees, and like a flaming stick among cut grain; they will send destruction on all the peoples round about, on the right hand and on the left: and Jerusalem will be living again in the place which is hers, that is, in Jerusalem.

And I will send down on the family of David and on the people of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and of prayer; and their eyes will be turned to the one who was wounded by their hands: and they will be weeping for him as for an only son, and their grief for him will be bitter, like the grief of one sorrowing for his oldest son.

In that day there will be a fountain open to the family of David and to the people of Jerusalem, for sin and for that which is unclean.

And if anyone goes on acting as a prophet, then his father and his mother who gave him life will say to him, You may not go on living, for you are saying what is false in the name of the Lord; and his father and his mother will put a sword through him when he does so.

And it will come about in that day that the prophets will be shamed, every man on account of his vision, when he is talking as a prophet; and they will not put on a robe of hair for purposes of deceit:

But he will say, I am no prophet, but a worker on the land; for I have been an owner of land from the time when I was young.

And I will make the third part go through the fire, cleaning them as silver is made clean, and testing them as gold is tested: and they will make their prayer to me and I will give them an answer: I will say, It is my people; and they will say, The Lord is my God.

For I will get all the nations together to make war against Jerusalem; and the town will be overcome, and the goods taken from the houses, and the women taken by force: and half the town will go away as prisoners, and the rest of the people will not be cut off from the town.

And there will be no more curse; but Jerusalem will be living without fear of danger.

And it will be on that day that a great fear will be sent among them from the Lord; and everyone will take his neighbour's hand, and every man's hand will be lifted against his neighbour's.

And every pot in Jerusalem and in Judah will be holy to the Lord of armies: and all those who make offerings will come and take them for boiling their offerings: in that day there will be no more traders in the house of the Lord of armies.