In the eighth month, in the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came to Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo the prophet, saying,

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.

On the twenty-fourth day of the eleventh month, the month Shebat, in the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came to Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo the prophet, saying,

I saw in the night a man on a red horse, between the mountains in the valley, and at his back were horses, red, black, white, and of mixed colours.

Then I said, O my lord, what are these? And the angel who was talking to me said to me, I will make clear to you what they are.

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.

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?

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 the angel who was talking to me, What are these? And he said to me, These are the horns which have sent Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem in flight.

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.

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.

And the angel who was talking to me went out, and another angel went out, and, meeting him,

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.

And he let me see Joshua, the high priest, in his place before the angel of the Lord, and the Satan at his right hand ready to take up a cause against him.

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?

These are the words of the Lord of armies: If you will go in my ways and keep what I have put in your care, then you will be judge over my Temple and have the care of my house, and I will give you the right to come in among those who are there.

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.

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

And he said to me, What do you see? And I said, I see a light-support, made all of gold, with its cup on the top of it and seven lights on it; and there are seven pipes to every one of the lights which are on the top of it;

And two olive-trees by it, one on the right side of the cup and one on the left.

And I made answer and said to the angel who was talking to me, What are these, my lord?

Then the angel who was talking to me, answering me, said, Have you no knowledge of what these are? And I said, No, my lord.

Who are you, O great mountain? before Zerubbabel you will become level: and he will let all see the headstone, with cries of Grace, grace, to it.

The hands of Zerubbabel have put the base of this house in place, and his hands will make it complete; and it will be clear to you that the Lord of armies has sent me to you.

And I made answer and said to him, What are these two olive-trees on the right side of the light-support and on the left?

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 in answer to me, Have you no knowledge what these are? And I said, No, my lord.

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 I will send it out, says the Lord of armies, and it will go into the house of the thief and into the house of him who takes a false oath by my name: and it will be in his house, causing its complete destruction, with its woodwork and its stones.

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 lifting up my eyes I saw two women coming out, and the wind was in their wings; and they had wings like the wings of a stork: and they took the ephah, lifting it up between earth and heaven.

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 in the third, white horses; and in the fourth, horses of mixed colour.

And I made answer and said to the angel who was talking to me, What are these, my lord?

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.

The carriage in which are the black horses goes in the direction of the north country; the white go to the west; and those of mixed colour go in the direction of the south country.

Then crying out to me, he said, See, those who are going to the north country have given rest to the spirit of the Lord in the north country.

And take silver and gold and make a crown and put it on the head of Zerubbabel;

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 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.

And it came about in the fourth year of King Darius, that the word of the Lord came to Zechariah on the fourth day of the ninth month, the month Chislev.

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:

Do not be hard on the widow, or the child without a father, on the man from a strange country, or on the poor; let there be no evil thought in your heart against your 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.

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,

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.

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 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 the Lord will be seen over them, and his arrow will go out like the thunder-flame: and the Lord God, sounding the war-horn, will go in the storm-winds of the South.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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 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.

And I took my rod Beautiful, cutting it in two, so that the Lord's agreement, which he had made with all the peoples, might be broken.

And it was broken on that day: and the sheep-traders, who were watching me, were certain that it was the word of the Lord.

And I said to them, If it seems good to you, give me my payment; and if not, do not give it. So they gave me my payment by weight, thirty shekels of silver.

And the Lord said to me, Put it into the store-house, the price at which I was valued by them. And I took the thirty shekels of silver and put them into the store-house in the house of the Lord.

Then I took my other rod, the one named Bands, cutting it in two, so that the relation of brothers between Judah and Israel might be broken.

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.

The word of the Lord about Israel. The Lord by whom the heavens are stretched out and the bases of the earth put in place, and the spirit of man formed inside him, has said:

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 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 it will come about on that day that I will take in hand the destruction of all the nations who come against Jerusalem.

And it will come about on that day, says the Lord of armies, that I will have the names of the images cut off out of the land, and there will be no more memory of them: and I will send all the prophets and the unclean spirit away from the land.

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:

And if anyone says to him, What are these wounds between your hands? then he will say, Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends.

And it will come about that in all the land, says the Lord, two parts of it will be cut off and come to an end; but the third will be still living there.

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.

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 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 on that day living waters will go out from Jerusalem; half of them flowing to the sea on the east and half to the sea on the west: in summer and in winter it will be so.

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 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.

And it will be that if any one of all the families of the earth does not go up to Jerusalem to give worship to the King, the Lord of armies, on them there will be no rain.