Behold, is it not for Jehovah of Hosts that the people labor only for fire; yea, the nations weary themselves only for vanity?

Though the fig tree shall not blossom, and fruit is not on the vines; the labor of the olive fails, and the fields yield no food. The flock is cut off from the fold, and no herd is in the stalls;

and those drawing back from Jehovah, and who have not sought Jehovah, nor asked for Him.

And it shall be in that time I will search Jerusalem with lamps, and punish the men who are settled on their lees; who say in their heart, Jehovah will not do good, nor will He do evil.

And their goods shall become a prize and their houses a waste. They shall also build houses, but not live in them, and they shall plant vineyards, but not drink their wine.

Their silver nor their gold will not be able to deliver them in the day of Jehovah's wrath; but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of His jealousy. For He shall make even a full, yea, a speedy end of all the dwellers in the land.

Gather yourselves together; yea, gather, O nation not desired;

before the birth of the decree, the day shall pass like the chaff; yet not before the hot anger of Jehovah comes on you, yet not before the day of Jehovah's anger comes on you.

She did not obey the voice; she did not receive correction. She trusted not in Jehovah; she did not draw near to her God.

Her rulers within her are roaring lions; her judges evening wolves. They do not gnaw bones for the morning.

The just Jehovah is in her midst; He will not act perversely. Every morning He gives His justice to the light; He fails not; but the perverse knows no shame.

I said, Surely you will fear Me; you will receive instruction; then her dwelling shall not be cut off, all that I appointed for her. But they rose early, corrupting all their doings.

In that day you shall not be ashamed for all your doings in which you have transgressed against Me; for then I will withdraw from your midst those who rejoice in your pride, and you shall never again be proud in My holy mountain.

The remnant of Israel shall not do iniquity nor speak lies, and a deceitful tongue shall not be found in their mouth; for they shall feed and lie down, and none shall make them afraid.

Jehovah has turned off your judgments; He has cast out your enemy. The king of Israel, Jehovah, is in your midst; you shall not fear evil any more.

In that day it shall be said to Jerusalem, Fear not! Do not let not your hands droop, Zion.

So says Jehovah of Hosts, saying: This people says, The time has not come, the time that Jehovah's house should be built.

you have sown much and bring in little; you eat, but you do not have enough; you drink, but you are not filled with drink; you dress, but no one is warm; and he who hires out himself hires himself for a bag full of holes.

Who is left among you who saw this house in her first glory? And how do you see it now? When compared to it, is it not as nothing in your eyes?

with the Word who cut a covenant with you when you came out of Egypt, and My Spirit remains among you. Do not fear.

I struck you with blight and with mildew, and with hail, in all the labors of your hands; yet you did not turn to Me, says Jehovah.

Is the seed still in the barn? Yea, as yet the vine, and the fig tree, and the pomegranate, and the olive tree, have not brought forth. From this day I will bless you.

Be not as your fathers, to whom the former prophets have proclaimed to them, saying, So says Jehovah of Hosts: Turn now from your evil ways and your evil doings. But they did not hear nor listen to Me, says Jehovah.

But My Words and My statutes which I commanded My servants the prophets, did they not overtake your fathers? And they returned and said, As Jehovah of Hosts planned to do to us, according to our ways and according to our doings, so He has done with us.

I watched by night. And behold! a Man riding on a red horse, and He stood among the myrtle trees in the ravine. And behind Him were red, sorrel and white horses.

Then the Angel of Jehovah answered and said, O Jehovah of Hosts, how long will You not have mercy on Jerusalem and on the cities of Judah against which You have cursed these seventy years?

And Jehovah said to Satan, May Jehovah rebuke you, Satan! May even Jehovah who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is this not a brand plucked out of the fire?

Then he answered and spoke to me, saying, This is the Word of Jehovah to Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, says Jehovah of Hosts.

And he answered me and said, Do you not know what these are? And I said, No, my lord.

And when you ate, and when you drank, was it not for you the eaters, and for you, the drinkers?

Are not these the Words which Jehovah proclaimed by the former prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited, and prosperous, and her cities all around her, and the Negev and the Shephelah were inhabited?

And do not crush the widow or the orphan, the alien or the poor. And do not devise evil in your heart, of a man against his brother.

And it will be, as He called, and they did not listen, so they called, and I did not listen, says Jehovah of Hosts.

But I stormed them away on all the nations whom they did not know. And the land has been wasted behind them, from passing and from returning; for they made the land of desire a waste.

But now I will not be to the remnant of this people as in the former days, says Jehovah of Hosts.

And it will be, as you were a curse among the nations, O house of Judah and house of Israel, so I will save you, and you shall be a blessing. Do not fear, but let your hands be strong.

For so says Jehovah of Hosts: As I thought to punish you when your fathers provoked Me to wrath, says Jehovah of Hosts, and I did not repent;

so again I have thought in these days to do well to Jerusalem and to the house of Judah. Fear not.

Ashkelon shall see and fear; Gaza also shall writhe in great pain; and Ekron shall be ashamed for her hope. And the king shall perish from Gaza, and Ashkelon shall not be inhabited.

And I will strengthen the house of Judah, and I will save the house of Joseph, and I will return to save them; for I have pity on them. And they shall be as though I had not cast them off; for I am Jehovah their God, and I will answer them.

I will return them out of the land of Egypt, and I will gather them out of Assyria; and I will bring them into the land of Gilead and Lebanon; for room shall not be found for them.

those buying them kill them, and hold themselves not guilty. And those who sell them say, Blessed be Jehovah, for I am rich; and their shepherds do not pity them.

For I will never again pity the people of the land, says Jehovah; but lo, I will make the men come out, each one into his neighbor's hand and into his king's hand. And they shall strike the land, and I will not deliver out of their hand.

And I said, I will not feed you; that which dies, let it die; and that which is to be cut off, let it be cut off. And those left, let them eat, each woman her neighbor's flesh.

And I said to them, If it is good, give My price; and if not, let it go. So they weighed My price thirty pieces of silver.

For lo, I will raise up a shepherd in the land who will not care for those going to ruin, nor will he seek the young, nor will heal that which is broken, nor will he feed that which stands. But he shall eat the flesh of the fat and tear off their hoofs.

Jehovah also shall save the tents of Judah first, so that the glory of the house of David and the glory of the people of Jerusalem may not be magnified above Judah.

And it shall be when any shall yet prophesy, his father and his mother who gave birth to him shall say to him then, You shall not live; for you speak lies in the name of Jehovah. And his father and his mother who gave him birth shall thrust him through when he prophesies.

And it shall be in that day, the prophets shall be ashamed, each one of his vision, when he prophesies. And they shall not wear a hairy garment to deceive.

For I will gather all nations to battle against Jerusalem; and the city shall be taken, and the houses plundered, and the women raped. And half of the city shall go into exile, and the rest of the people shall not be cut off from the city.

And it will be in that day, there shall not be light; the glorious ones shall shrink.

And it will be one day which shall be known to Jehovah, neither day nor night; but it will happen that at evening time it shall be light.

And it shall be, whoever will not come up from all the families of the earth to Jerusalem to worship the King, Jehovah of Hosts, even on them shall be no rain.

And if the family of Egypt does not go up, nor come in, they shall have no rain, but the plague with which Jehovah shall strike the nations who do not come up to keep the Feast of Tabernacles.

This shall be Egypt's offense, and the offense of all the nations who do not come up to keep the Feast of Tabernacles.

I have loved you, says Jehovah. But you say, In what have You loved us? Was not Esau Jacob's brother? says Jehovah; yet I loved Jacob,

And if you offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? And if you offer the lame and the sick, is it not evil? Bring it now to your governor. Will he accept you, or lift up your face, says Jehovah of Hosts?

Who is even among you who will shut the doors, and you not kindle fire on My altar in vain! I have no pleasure in you, says Jehovah of Hosts. I will not be pleased with an offering from you.

If you will not hear, and if you will not set it on your heart to give glory to My name, says Jehovah of Hosts, then I will send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings. And indeed I have cursed it, because you do not set it on your heart.

The Law of Truth was in his mouth, and iniquity was not found in his lips. He walked with Me in peace and uprightness, and turned away many from iniquity.

Therefore I have also made you despised and low before all the people, just as you have not kept My ways but are lifting up faces in the law.

Is there not one Father to us all? Has not one God created us? Why do we act deceitfully, each man with his brother, to profane the covenant of our fathers.

And this is a second thing you have done, covering the altar of Jehovah with tears, weeping, and groaning, yet not facing toward the food offering, and taking it with delight from your hand.

And did He not make you one? Yet the vestige of the Spirit is in him. And what of the one? He was seeking a godly seed. Then guard your spirit, and do not act treacherously with the wife of your youth.

Jehovah, the God of Israel, says He hates sending away; and to cover with violence on his garment, says Jehovah of Hosts. Then guard your spirit, and do not act treacherously.

And I will come near you to judgment. And I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those who extort from the hired laborer's wages, and turning away the widow, and the orphan, the alien, and not fearing Me, says Jehovah of Hosts.

For I am Jehovah, I change not. Because of this you sons of Jacob are not destroyed.

From the days of your fathers, you have turned aside from My statutes, and have not kept them. Return to Me, and I will return to you, says Jehovah of Hosts. But you say. In what way shall we return?

Bring all the tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house. And test Me now with this, says Jehovah of Hosts, to see if I will not open the windows of Heaven for you, and pour out a blessing for you, until there is not enough room.

And I will rebuke your devourer, and he shall not decay the fruit of your ground against you; nor shall your vine miscarry against you in the field, says Jehovah of Hosts.

And now we are calling the arrogant blessed. Not only are the doers of wickedness built up, they also test God, and escape.

Then you shall again see the difference between the righteous and the wicked, between him who serves God, and him who does not serve Him.

For behold, the day is coming, burning like a fire pot; and all the proud, and every doer of wickedness, shall be chaff. And the coming day will set them ablaze, says Jehovah of Hosts, which will not leave root or branches to them.

And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the sons, and the heart of the sons to their fathers, that I not come and strike the earth with utter destruction.

But Joseph, her husband to be, being just, and not willing to make her a public example, he purposed to put her away secretly.

And as he thought upon these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take to you Mary as your wife. For that in her is fathered of the Holy Spirit.

and did not know her until she bore her son, the First-born. And he called His name JESUS.

"And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are not the least among the governors of Judah. For out of you shall come a Governor who shall rule My people Israel."

And being warned of God in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed into their own country another way.

And he arose and took the young child and his mother by night and departed into Egypt.

"A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not."

and do not think to say within yourselves, We have Abraham as our father. For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones.

And now also, the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Therefore every tree which does not bring forth good fruit is cut down and cast into the fire.

I indeed baptize you with water to repentance. But He who comes after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire;

But John restrained Him, saying, I have need to be baptized by You, and do You come to me?

But He answered and said, It is written, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God."

Jesus said to him, It is written again, "You shall not tempt the Lord your God."

And walking by the Sea of Galilee, Jesus saw two brothers, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea. For they were fishermen.

Do not think that I have come to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I have not come to destroy but to fulfill.

For truly I say to you, Till the heaven and the earth pass away, not one jot or one tittle shall in any way pass from the Law until all is fulfilled.

You have heard that it was said to the ancients, "You shall not kill" --and, "Whoever shall kill shall be liable to the judgment."

Agree with your adversary quickly, while you are in the way with him; that the opponent not deliver you to the judge, and the judge deliver you to the officer, and you be thrown into prison.

You have heard that it was said to the ancients, "You shall not commit adultery."

And if your right eye offends you, pluck it out and throw it from you. For it is profitable for you that one of your members should perish, and not that your whole body should be thrown into hell.

And if your right hand offends you, cut it off and throw it from you. For it is profitable for you that one of your members should perish, and not that your whole body should be thrown into hell.

Again, you have heard that it has been said to the ancients, "You shall not swear falsely, but you shall perform your oaths to the Lord."

But I say to you, Do not swear at all! Not by Heaven, because it is God's throne;

not by the earth, for it is the footstool of His feet; not by Jerusalem, because it is the city of the great King;

But I say to you, Do not resist evil. But whoever shall strike you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also.

Give to him who asks of you, and you shall not turn away from him who would borrow from you.