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 me, said, These are those whom the Lord has sent to go up and down through the earth.

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?

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.

And I am very angry with the nations who are living untroubled: for when I was only a little angry, they made the evil worse.

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.

Ho! Zion, go in flight from danger, you who are living with the daughter of Babylon.

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 made answer and said to those who were there before him, Take the unclean robes off him, and let him be clothed in clean robes;

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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, These are the two sons of oil, whose place is by the Lord of 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 said to the angel who was talking to me, Where are they taking the ephah?

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.

In the first war-carriage were red horses; and in the second, black horses;

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

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 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 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.

And when you are feasting and drinking, are you not doing it only for yourselves?

Are not these the words which the Lord said to you by the earlier prophets, when Jerusalem was full of people and wealth, and the towns round about her and the South and the Lowland were peopled?

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 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.

These are the words of the Lord of armies: I am angry about the fate of Zion, I am angry about her with great wrath.

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:

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.

Let no one have any evil thought in his heart against his neighbour; and have no love for false oaths: for all these things are hated by me, says the Lord.

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 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 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.

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.

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.

Make your request to the Lord for rain in the time of the spring rains, even to the Lord who makes the thunder-flames; and he will give them showers of rain, to every man grass in the field.

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.

From him will come the keystone, from him the nail, from him the bow of war, from him will come every ruler;

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 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.

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

And in one month I put an end to the three keepers of the flock; for my soul was tired of them, and their souls were disgusted with me.

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.

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 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 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.

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 there will be no heat or cold or ice;

And this will be the disease which the Lord will send on all the peoples which have been warring against Jerusalem: their flesh will be wasted away while they are on their feet, their eyes will be wasted in their heads and their tongues in their mouths.

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 if the family of Egypt does not go up or come there, they will be attacked by the disease which the Lord will send on the nations:

You have been loved by me, says the Lord. But you say, Where was your love for us? Was not Esau Jacob's brother? says the Lord: but Jacob was loved by me,

Though Edom says, We are crushed down but we will come back, building up the waste places; this is what the Lord of armies has said: They may put up buildings, but I will have them pulled down; and they will be named The land of evil-doing, and The people against whom the Lord keeps his wrath for ever.

And your eyes will see it; and you will say, The Lord is great even outside the limits of Israel.

A son gives honour to his father, and a servant has fear of his master: if then I am a father, where is my honour? and if I am a master, where is the fear of me? says the Lord of armies to you, O priests, who give no value to my name. And you say, How have we not given value to your name?

You put unclean bread on my altar. And you say, How have we made it unclean? By your saying, The table of the Lord is of no value.

And when you give what is blind for an offering, it is no evil! and when you give what is damaged and ill, it is no evil! Give it now to your ruler; will he be pleased with you, or will you have his approval? says the Lord of armies.

And now, make request for the grace of God so that he may have mercy on us: this has been your doing: will he give his approval to any of you? says the Lord of armies.

If only there was one among you who would see that the doors were shut, so that you might not put a light to the fire on my altar for nothing! I have no pleasure in you, says the Lord of armies, and I will not take an offering from your hands.

And you say, See, what a weariness it is! and you let out your breath at it, says the Lord of armies; and you have given what has been cut about by beasts, and what is damaged in its feet and ill; this is the offering you give: will this be pleasing to me from your hands? says the Lord.

If you will not give ear and take it to heart, to give glory to my name, says the Lord of armies, then I will send the curse on you and will put a curse on your blessing: truly, even now I have put a curse on it, because you do not take it to heart.

See, I will have your arm cut off, and will put waste on your faces, even the waste from your feasts; and you will be taken away with it.

But you are turned out of the way; you have made the law hard for numbers of people; you have made the agreement of Levi of no value, says the Lord of armies.

And so I have taken away your honour and made you low before all the people, even as you have not kept my ways, and have given no thought to me in using the law.

Have we not all one father? has not one God made us? why are we, every one of us, acting falsely to his brother, putting shame on the agreement of our fathers?

And this again you do: covering the altar of the Lord with weeping and with grief, so that he gives no more thought to the offering, and does not take it with pleasure from your hand.

But you say, For what reason? Because the Lord has been a witness between you and the wife of your early years, to whom you have been untrue, though she is your friend and the wife to whom you have given your word.

... So give thought to your spirit, and let no one be false to the wife of his early years.

For I am against the putting away of a wife, says the Lord, the God of Israel, and against him who is clothed with violent acts, says the Lord of armies: so give thought to your spirit and do not be false in your acts.