You must say to them: 'Thus says Yahweh of hosts: "Return to me," {declares} Yahweh of hosts, "and I will return to you," says Yahweh of hosts.

And I asked, "What [are] these, my lord?" And the angel [who was] talking with me said, "I will show you what these are."

The angel of Yahweh answered and said, "O Yahweh of hosts, {how long} will you have no compassion on Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, [with] which you showed fury these seventy years?"

Therefore, thus says Yahweh: "I have returned to Jerusalem with compassion. My temple will be built in it," {declares} Yahweh of hosts, "and a measuring line will be stretched out over Jerusalem." '

Proclaim again, saying, 'Thus says Yahweh of hosts: "My cities shall again overflow from prosperity, and Yahweh will comfort Zion again, and he will choose Jerusalem again." '"

And I will be for it a wall of fire all around,' {declares} Yahweh, 'and I will be [the] glory in its midst.'"

"Yes, look! I [am] going to wave my hand against them, and they will become plunder for their servants, and you will know that Yahweh of hosts has sent me.

Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion, for look, I [am] coming and I will dwell in your midst," {declares} Yahweh.

"Many nations will join themselves to Yahweh on that day, and they will be my people, and I will dwell in your midst. And you will know that Yahweh of hosts has sent me to you.

And Yahweh will inherit Judah [as] his portion {in the holy land}, and he will again choose Jerusalem.

And he answered and said to the ones standing {before} him, saying, "Remove the filthy garments from him." And he said to him, "See, I have taken away your guilt from you, and will clothe you [with] rich garments."

"Thus says Yahweh of hosts: 'If you will walk in my ways, and if you will keep my requirements, then you will judge my house, and you will also guard my courtyards, and I will give to you passageways among these that are standing here.

For consider, the stone that {I set before} Joshua, on one stone [are] seven eyes. Look, {I am going to engrave an inscription on it},' {declares} Yahweh of hosts, 'and I will remove the guilt of that land in a single day.

On that day,' {declares} Yahweh of hosts, 'you will invite {one another} under [the] vine and under [the] fig tree.'"

'Who [are] you O great mountain? {Before} Zerubbabel [you will become] level ground, and he will bring out the top stone amid the shouts of "Grace, grace to it!" '"

"The hands of Zerubbabel have founded this house, and his hands will finish it. And you will know that Yahweh of hosts has sent me to you.

For whoever has despised the day of small [things] will rejoice and will see the {plumb line} in the hand of Zerubbabel." These seven [are] the eyes of Yahweh which [are] ranging {throughout the whole earth}.

'I have sent it out,' {declares} Yahweh of hosts, 'and it will go into the house of the thief and into the house of the one swearing {falsely by my name}, and it will spend the night in that house and will destroy it, with its timber and its stone.'"

And he said to me, "To build for it a house in the land of Shinar, and [when] it is put in place, it will be placed there on its site."

And say to him, 'Thus says Yahweh of hosts: "Look, [here is] a man whose name [is] Branch, and from his place he will sprout, and he will build the temple of Yahweh.

And he will build the temple of Yahweh, and he will bear majesty and will sit and rule on his throne. And he shall be a priest on his throne, and the counsel of peace will be between the two of them." '

And the crown will be for Helem, for Tobijah, for Jedaiah, and for Hen son of Zephaniah, as a memorial in the temple of Yahweh.

And those who are far off will come and build the temple of Yahweh, and you will know that Yahweh of hosts has sent me to you. And it will happen if you will listen diligently to the voice of Yahweh your God."

'Thus, just as I called and they would not hear, so they will call and I will not hear,' says Yahweh of hosts.

Thus says Yahweh: 'I have returned to Zion, and I will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem; and Jerusalem will be called the faithful city, and the mountain of Yahweh of hosts [will be called] the holy mountain.'

And the public squares of the city will be filled [with] boys and girls playing in its public squares.'

and I will bring them and they will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem. They will be my people and I will be their God in faithfulness and in righteousness.'

But now {I will not deal with the remnant of this people as in the former days},' {declares} Yahweh of hosts.

'For [there will be] a sowing of peace; the vine will give its fruit, and the soil will give its produce, and the heavens will give their dew. And I will cause the remnant of this people to inherit all these [things].

{And then}, just as you were a curse among the nations, O house of Judah and house of Israel, so will I save you, and you will be a blessing. You must not be afraid; let your hands be strong!'"

"Thus says Yahweh of hosts: 'The fast of the fourth [month], the fifth [month], the seventh [month], and the tenth [month] will be for the house of Judah jubilation and joy and merry festivals; therefore love truth and peace.'

Thus says Yahweh of hosts: '[It will happen] again that nations and the inhabitants of many cities will come.

And the inhabitants of one city will go to another [city], saying, "Let us go immediately to entreat {the favor of} Yahweh, to seek Yahweh of hosts--I also will go!"

And many peoples and powerful nations will come to seek Yahweh of hosts in Jerusalem, and to entreat {the favor of} Yahweh.'

Thus says Yahweh of hosts: 'In those days ten men from {all the nations of every language} will take hold of the hem of a Judean man, saying, "Let us go with you, for we have heard [that] God [is] with you!" '"

Look! The Lord will drive it out and will hurl its outer ramparts into the sea, and it will be consumed by fire.

Ashkelon will see and will be afraid, and Gaza will writhe exceedingly, and Ekron [also], because its hope is ruined. And the king from Gaza will perish, and Ashkelon will not be inhabited.

A mongrel people will dwell in Ashdod, and I will cut down the pride of [the] Philistines.

I will remove its blood from its mouth, and its abominations from between its teeth. And it too will be a remnant for our God; and it will be like a tribal chief in Judah, and Ekron [will be] like [the] Jebusite.

But I will encamp at my temple [like a] guard, against those crossing through and returning; no oppressor will cross through them again, for now I have seen with my [own] eyes.

And I will cut off [the] chariot from Ephraim, and [the] horse from Jerusalem; the battle bow will be cut down, and he will announce peace to the nations. His dominion [will be] from sea to sea, and from [the] River to [the] ends of [the] earth.

[As for] you also, because of the blood of your covenant, I will release your prisoners from {the waterless pit}.

Return to [the] fortress, O prisoners of hope; today [I am] declaring [that] I will repay you double.

For I have bent Judah [as] my bow; I have set Ephraim [as an arrow]. I will set in motion your sons, O Zion, against your sons, O Javan. I will wield you like the sword of a warrior.

Then Yahweh will appear over them, and his arrow will go forth like lightning; and my Lord Yahweh will blow the trumpet, and he shall go out in the storm winds of [the] south.

Yahweh of hosts will defend them, and they will devour and subdue the slingstones; they will drink, they will make noise like wine, and they will be full like the sacrificial basin, [drenched] like the corners of an altar.

And Yahweh their God will save them on that day, as the flock of his people; for [they are like] the stones of a diadem, glittering on his land.

For how [great is] his goodness, and how [great is] his beauty! Grain will make the young men thrive, and new wine [the] young women.

{My anger burns} against the shepherds, and I will punish the leaders, because Yahweh of hosts watches over his flock, the house of Judah; and he will make them like his majestic horse in war.

From them [the] cornerstone will go out, from them [the] tent peg, from them [the] battle bow, from them every ruler, [all] together.

And they will be like warriors, trampling in the mud of [the] streets in the battle. They will fight, because Yahweh [is] with them, and they will put to shame [the] riders on horses.

And I will strengthen the house of Judah, and the house of Joseph I will save. And I will bring them back, because I have compassion on them, and they will be as if I had not rejected them, for I [am] Yahweh their God, and I will answer them.

And [the people of] Ephraim will be like warrior, and their heart will be glad as [with] wine. And their children will see and rejoice; their heart will shout in exultation in Yahweh.

I will whistle to them and gather them, for I have redeemed them, and they will become numerous as they have been numerous [before].

Though I sow them among the nations, in the distant places they will remember me, and they will stay alive with their children, and they will return.

And I will bring them back from the land of Egypt, and from Assyria I will gather them. To the land of Gilead and Lebanon I will bring them, until no [room] will be found for them [there].

And he will pass through the sea of distress, and he will strike the waves of the sea, and all [the] depths of the Nile will dry up. The pride of Assyria will be brought low, and the scepter of Egypt will depart.

I will make them strong in Yahweh, and in his name they will walk, {declares} Yahweh.

Open your doors, Lebanon, so that fire will devour your cedars!

For I will no longer have compassion on the inhabitants of the land," {declares} Yahweh. "Look, I [am] going to cause humankind to fall, each into the hand of his neighbor, and into the hand of his king; and they will devastate the land, and I will not deliver [anyone] from their hand."

So I said, "I will not shepherd you! The [one] dying will die, and the [one] to be destroyed will be destroyed. And the [ones] remaining, let them devour {the flesh of each other}."

For look, I [am] raising up a shepherd in the land who will not attend to the [ones that are] perishing; he will not seek the young man, he will not heal the [ones that are] crushed and he will not sustain the healthy [ones]; he will devour the flesh of the {fattened ones} and tear apart [even] their hoofs.

'Look, I [am] going to make Jerusalem a cup of reeling for all the surrounding nations; it will also be against Judah in the siege against Jerusalem.

{And then} on that day I will make Jerusalem a stone weight for all the peoples. All those lifting it up will grievously hurt themselves, and all the nations of the earth will assemble against it.

On that day,' {declares} Yahweh, 'I will strike every horse with confusion, and the one riding it with madness; but over the house of Judah {I will keep my eyes open}, and I will strike every horse of the peoples with blindness.

And the clans of Judah will say {to themselves}, "The inhabitants of Jerusalem are a strength to us, through Yahweh of hosts, their God."

" 'On that day I will make the clans of Judah like a pan of fire among [sticks of] wood, and like a torch of fire among stalks of grain, and they will devour to [the] right and to [the] left all the surrounding peoples, and Jerusalem will be inhabited again [in] its place, in Jerusalem.

And Yahweh will save the tents of Judah first, so that the glory of the house of David and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem may not be exalted over Judah.

On that day Yahweh will put a shield around the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and the one who stumbles among them on that day will be like David, and the house of David [will be] like God, like the angel of Yahweh, {before them}.

{And then} on that day I will seek to destroy all the nations coming against Jerusalem.

" 'I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication, and they will look to me whom they pierced, and they shall mourn over him, as one wails over an only child, and they will grieve bitterly over him as [one] grieves bitterly over a firstborn.

On that day the wailing will be great in Jerusalem, like the wailing for Hadad Rimmon in the plain of Megiddo.

" 'On that day a well will be opened for the house of David and for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, {to cleanse them from sin and from impurity}.

{And then}, on that day,' {declares} Yahweh of hosts, 'I will cut off the names of the idols from the land, and they will no longer be remembered; and also the prophets and the spirit of uncleanness I will banish from the land.

{And then}, if anyone prophesies again, his father and his mother who bore him will say to him, "You shall not live, because you have spoken a lie in the name of Yahweh!" And his father and his mother who bore him will pierce him through when he prophesies.

{And then} on that day, each of the prophets will be ashamed because of his vision when he was prophesying, and they will not put on a cloak of hair in order to deceive,

but he will say, "I [am] not a prophet; I am a tiller of the soil, for a man has acquired me since my youth."

And someone shall say to him, "What [are] these wounds {between your arms}?" and he will say, "Those I have received [in] the house of [the ones who] love me." '"

"O sword, awake against my shepherd, against [the] man [who is] my associate," {declares} Yahweh of hosts. "Strike the shepherd, so that the sheep may be scattered, and I will turn my hand against the small [ones].

{And then} in all the land," {declares} Yahweh, "{two thirds} will be cut off and perish, and one third will be left alive in it.

And I will bring the [remaining] third into the fire, and I will refine them like [one] refines silver, and I will test them like [one] tests gold. They will call my name, and I will answer them. I will say, 'They are my people,' and they will say, 'Yahweh [is] my God.'"

Look! A day [is] coming for Yahweh, when your plunder will be divided in your midst.

I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the city will be captured, and they will loot the houses, and the women will be raped; half of the city will go into exile, but the remainder of the people will not be cut off from the city.

Then Yahweh will go forth and fight against those nations, like {when he fights} on a day of battle.

On that day his feet will stand on {the Mount of Olives}, which faces Jerusalem on [the] east; and {the Mount of Olives} will be split {in half}, from east to west, [by] a very great valley; and half of the mountain will withdraw toward the north, and the other half toward the south.

And you will flee [by] the valley of my mountains, because the valley of [the] mountains will reach to Azal, and you will flee like you fled from the earthquake in the days of King Uzziah of Judah. And Yahweh my God will come, [and] all [the] holy ones with him.

{And then} on that day there will not be light, the precious things will congeal.

There shall be continuous day--it is known to Yahweh--not day and not night; and at evening time there will be light.

{And then} on that day, living waters will flow out from Jerusalem, half of them to the eastern sea, and the other half to the western sea; it will happen [both] in the summer and in the winter.

And Yahweh will be king over all the earth; on that day Yahweh will be one and his name one.

All the land will be transformed into a desert plateau from Geba to Rimmon south of Jerusalem. But it will rise up high and it will stay in its place from the Gate of Benjamin to the place of [the] former gate, up to the Corner Gate and from the Tower of Hananel to the king's winepresses.

And they will dwell in it, and {there will be no more ban imposed}, and Jerusalem will dwell in security.

And this will be the plague [with] which Yahweh will strike all the peoples that fight against Jerusalem: their flesh will rot while they [are] standing on their feet; their eyes will rot in their sockets, and their tongues will rot in their mouths.

{And then} on that day a great panic from Yahweh will fall on them, and {they will seize one another's hand}, and the hand of the one will be raised against the hand of {another}.

And Judah also will fight at Jerusalem. And the wealth of all the surrounding nations will be collected--gold and silver, and garments {in great abundance}.

{Like this plague} will be the plague on the horse, the mule, the camel, and the donkey, and every kind of animal in those camps.

{And then} every survivor from all those nations coming against Jerusalem will go up year after year to worship [the] king, Yahweh of hosts, and celebrate the Feast of Booths.

{And then} whoever of the clans of the earth does not go up to Jerusalem to worship the king, Yahweh of hosts, it will not rain on them.

And if the clan of Egypt will not go up and come in, on them will be that plague Yahweh inflicts on the nations that do not go up to celebrate the Feast of Booths.

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