And you are to say to them, These are the words of the Lord of armies: Come back to me, says the Lord of armies, and I will come back to you.

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.

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.

And the angel who was talking to me said to me, Let your voice be loud and say, These are the words of the Lord of armies: I am greatly moved about the fate of Jerusalem and of Zion.

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 lifting up my eyes I saw four horns.

And lifting up my eyes, I saw a man with a measuring-line in his hand.

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.

Said to him, Go quickly and say to this young man, Jerusalem will be an unwalled town, because of the great number of men and cattle in her.

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 a number of nations will be joined to the Lord in that day, and will become my people; and I will be living among you, and you will see that the Lord of armies has sent me to you.

And Judah will be the Lord's heritage in the holy land, and Jerusalem will again be his.

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?

And let them put a clean head-dress on his head. So they put a clean head-dress on his head, clothing him with clean robes: and to him he said, See, I have taken your sin away from you.

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.

In that day, says the Lord of armies, you will be one another's guests under the vine and under the fig-tree.

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;

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.

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 again lifting up my eyes I saw a roll in flight through the air.

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.

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 saw a round cover of lead lifted up; and a woman was seated in the middle of the ephah.

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 the red ones go to the east; and they made request that they might go up and down through the earth: and he said, Go up and down through the earth. So they went up and down through the earth.

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 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 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?

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 they made their hearts like the hardest stone, so that they might not give ear to the law and the words which the Lord of armies had said by the earlier prophets: and there came great wrath from the Lord of armies.

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:

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: 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: 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.

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.

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.

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,

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 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.

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 he will have the war-carriage cut off from Ephraim, and the horse from Jerusalem, and the bow of war will be cut off: and he will say words of peace to the nations: and his rule will be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth.

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 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 they will go through the sea of Egypt, and all the deep waters of the Nile will become dry: and the pride of Assyria will be made low, and the power of Egypt will be taken away.

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

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 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 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.

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.

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

And the families of Judah will say in their hearts, The people of Jerusalem have their strength in the Lord of armies, their God.

And the Lord will give salvation to the tents of Judah first, so that the glory of the family of David and the glory of the people of Jerusalem may not be greater than that of Judah.

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.

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 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 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.

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 all the land will become like the Arabah, from Geba to Rimmon south of Jerusalem; and she will be lifted up and be living in her place; from the doorway of Benjamin to the place of the first doorway, to the doorway of the angle, and from the tower of Hananel to the king's wine-crushing places, men will be living in her.

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.

On that day all the bells of the horses will be holy to the Lord, and the pots in the Lord's house will be like the basins before the altar.