Do not be like your ancestors; the earlier prophets proclaimed to them: This is what the Lord of Hosts says: Turn from your evil ways and your evil deeds. But they did not listen or pay attention to Me”—this is the Lord’s declaration.

But didn’t My words and My statutes that I commanded My servants the prophets overtake your ancestors? They repented and said: As the Lord of Hosts purposed to deal with us for our ways and deeds, so He has dealt with us.”

I looked out in the night and saw a man riding on a red horse. He was standing among the myrtle trees in the valley. Behind him were red, sorrel, and white horses.

So he answered me, “This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: ‘Not by strength or by might, but by My Spirit,’ says the Lord of Hosts.

Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor, and do not plot evil in your hearts against one another.

But they refused to pay attention and turned a stubborn shoulder; they closed their ears so they could not hear.

They made their hearts like a rock so as not to obey the law or the words that the Lord of Hosts had sent by His Spirit through the earlier prophets. Therefore great anger came from the Lord of Hosts.

Just as He had called, and they would not listen, so when they called, I would not listen,” says the Lord of Hosts.

“I scattered them with a windstorm over all the nations that had not known them, and the land was left desolate behind them, with no one coming or going. They turned a pleasant land into a desolation.”

But now, I will not treat the remnant of this people as in the former days”—this is the declaration of the Lord of Hosts.

For the Lord of Hosts says this: “As I resolved to treat you badly when your fathers provoked Me to anger, and I did not relent,” says the Lord of Hosts,

Do not plot evil in your hearts against your neighbor, and do not love perjury, for I hate all this”—this is the Lord’s declaration.

I will bring them back from the land of Egypt
and gather them from Assyria.
I will bring them to the land of Gilead
and to Lebanon,
but it will not be enough for them.

Those who buy them slaughter them but are not punished. Those who sell them say: Praise the Lord because I have become rich! Even their own shepherds have no compassion for them.

Indeed, I will no longer have compassion on the inhabitants of the land”—this is the Lord’s declaration. “Instead, I will turn everyone over to his neighbor and his king. They will devastate the land, and I will not deliver it from them.”

Then I said to them, “If it seems right to you, give me my wages; but if not, keep them.” So they weighed my wages, 30 pieces of silver.

I am about to raise up a shepherd in the land who will not care for those who are going astray, and he will not seek the lost or heal the broken. He will not sustain the healthy, but he will devour the flesh of the fat sheep and tear off their hooves.

The Lord will save the tents of Judah first, so that the glory of David’s house and the glory of Jerusalem’s residents may not be greater than that of Judah.

On that day every prophet will be ashamed of his vision when he prophesies; they will not put on a hairy cloak in order to deceive.

He will say: I am not a prophet; I work the land, for a man purchased me as a servant since my youth.

I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem for battle. The city will be captured, the houses looted, and the women raped. Half the city will go into exile, but the rest of the people will not be removed from the city.

It will be a day known only to Yahweh, without day or night, but there will be light at evening.

Should any of the families of the earth not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of Hosts, rain will not fall on them.

And if the people of Egypt will not go up and enter, then rain will not fall on them; this will be the plague the Lord inflicts on the nations who do not go up to celebrate the Festival of Booths.

This will be the punishment of Egypt and all the nations that do not go up to celebrate the Festival of Booths.