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.

And the man who was between the mountains, answering, said to the angel of the Lord, We have gone up and down through the earth, and all the earth is quiet and at rest.

So this is what the Lord has said: I have come back to Jerusalem with mercies; my house is to be put up in her, says the Lord of armies, and a line is to be stretched out over Jerusalem.

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 I said to him, Where are you going? And he said to me, To take the measure of Jerusalem, to see how wide and how long it is.

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.

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?

And the angel who was talking to me came again, awaking me as a man out of his sleep.

This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel, saying, Not by force or by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord of armies.

And answering a second time, I said to him, What are these two olive branches, through whose gold pipes the oil is drained out?

And he said, These are the two sons of oil, whose place is by the Lord of all the earth.

And he said to me, What do you see? And I said, A roll going through the air; it is twenty cubits long and ten cubits wide.

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 the angel who was talking to me went out and said to me, Let your eyes be lifted up now, and see the ephah which is going out.

And I said, What is it? And he said, This is an ephah which is going out. And he said further, This is their evil-doing in all the land.

And he said, This is Sin; and pushing her down into the ephah, he put the weight of lead on the mouth of it.

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.

Take the offerings of those who went away as prisoners, from Heldai, Tobijah, and Jedaiah, and from the family of Josiah, the son of Zephaniah, who have come from Babylon;

And say to him, These are the words of the Lord of armies: See, the man whose name is the Branch, under whom there will be fertile growth.

And he will be the builder of the Temple of the Lord; and the glory will be his, and he will take his place as ruler on the seat of power; and Joshua will be a priest at his right hand, and between them there will be a design of peace.

And to say to the priests of the house of the Lord of armies and to the prophets, Am I to go on weeping in the fifth month, separating myself as I have done in past years?

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:

And it came about that as they would not give ear to his voice, so I would not give ear to their voice, says the Lord of armies:

This is what the Lord has said: I have come back to Zion, and will make my living-place in Jerusalem: and Jerusalem will be named The town of good faith; and the mountain of the Lord of armies The holy mountain.

This is what the Lord of armies has said: There will again be old men and old women seated in the open spaces of Jerusalem, every man with his stick in his hand because he is so old.

This is what the Lord of armies has said: If this is a wonder to the rest of this people, is it a wonder to me? says the Lord of armies.

This is what the Lord of armies has said: See, I will be the saviour of my people from the east country, and from the west country;

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.

But now I will not be to the rest of this people as I was in the past, says the Lord of armies.

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.

These are the things which you are to do: Let every man say what is true to his neighbour; and let your judging give peace in your towns.

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.

This is what the Lord of armies has said: It will again come about that when peoples and those living in great towns come,

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.

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,

As well as Hamath, which is by its limit, and Tyre and Zidon, because they are very wise.

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.

Be full of joy, O daughter of Zion; give a glad cry, O daughter of Jerusalem: see, your king comes to you: he is upright and has overcome; gentle and seated on an ass, on a young ass.

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.

And they will come back to you, O daughter of Zion, as prisoners of hope: today I say to you that I will give you back twice as much;

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.

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

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.

Together they will be like men of war, crushing down their haters into the earth of the streets in the fight; they will make war because the Lord is with them: and the horsemen will be shamed.

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.

And Ephraim will be like a man of war, and their hearts will be glad as with wine; and their children will see it with joy; their hearts will be glad in the Lord.

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.

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.

This is what the Lord my God has said: Take care of the flock of death;

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.

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.

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.

In that day the Lord will be a cover over the people of Jerusalem; and he who is feeble among them in that day will be as strong as David, and the family of David will be as God, as the angel of the Lord before them.

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:

Awake! O sword, against the keeper of my flock, and against him who is with me, says the Lord of armies: put to death the keeper of the sheep, and the sheep will go in flight: and my hand will be turned against the little ones.

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.

See, a day of the Lord is coming when they will make division of your goods taken by force before your eyes.

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.

Then the Lord will go out and make war against those nations, as he did in the day of the fight.

And in that day his feet will be on the Mount of Olives, which is opposite Jerusalem on the east, and the Mount of Olives will be parted in the middle to the east and to the west, forming a very great valley; and half the mountain will be moved to the north and half of it to the south.

And the valley will be stopped ... and you will go in flight as you went in flight from the earth-shock in the days of Uzziah, king of Judah: and the Lord my God will come, and all his holy ones with him.

And in that day there will be no heat or cold or ice;

And it will be unbroken day, such as the Lord has knowledge of, without change of day and night, and even at nightfall it will be light.

And it will come about that everyone who is still living, of all those nations who came against Jerusalem, will go up from year to year to give worship to the King, the Lord of armies, and to keep the feast of tents.