I will set up camp at My house against an army,
against those who march back and forth,
and no oppressor will march against them again,
for now I have seen with My own eyes.

I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim
and the horse from Jerusalem.
The bow of war will be removed,
and He will proclaim peace to the nations.
His dominion will extend from sea to sea,
from the Euphrates River
to the ends of the earth.

As for you,
because of the blood of your covenant,
I will release your prisoners
from the waterless cistern.

Return to a stronghold,
you prisoners who have hope;
today I declare that I will restore double to you.

For I will bend Judah as My bow;
I will fill that bow with Ephraim.
I will rouse your sons, Zion,
against your sons, Greece.
I will make you like a warrior’s sword.

Then the Lord will appear over them,
and His arrow will fly like lightning.
The Lord God will sound the trumpet
and advance with the southern storms.

The Lord of Hosts will defend them.
They will consume and conquer with slingstones;
they will drink and be rowdy as if with wine.
They will be as full as the sprinkling basin,
like those at the corners of the altar.

The Lord their God will save them on that day
as the flock of His people;
for they are like jewels in a crown,
sparkling over His land.

How lovely and beautiful they will be!
Grain will make the young men flourish,
and new wine, the young women.

Ask the Lord for rain
in the season of spring rain.
The Lord makes the rain clouds,
and He will give them showers of rain
and crops in the field for everyone.

My anger burns against the shepherds,
so I will punish the leaders.
For the Lord of Hosts has tended His flock,
the house of Judah;
He will make them like His majestic steed in battle.

The cornerstone will come from Judah.
The tent peg will come from them
and also the battle bow and every ruler.
Together

they will be like warriors in battle
trampling down the mud of the streets.
They will fight because the Lord is with them,
and they will put horsemen to shame.

I will strengthen the house of Judah
and deliver the house of Joseph.
I will restore them
because I have compassion on them,
and they will be
as though I had never rejected them.
For I am Yahweh their God,
and I will answer them.

Ephraim will be like a warrior,
and their hearts will be glad as if with wine.
Their children will see it and be glad;
their hearts will rejoice in Yahweh.

I will whistle and gather them
because I have redeemed them;
they will be as numerous as they once were.

Though I sow them among the nations,
they will remember Me in the distant lands;
they and their children will live and return.

I will bring them back from the land of Egypt
and gather them from Assyria.
I will bring them to the land of Gilead
and to Lebanon,
but it will not be enough for them.

Yahweh will pass through the sea of distress
and strike the waves of the sea;
all the depths of the Nile will dry up.
The pride of Assyria will be brought down,
and the scepter of Egypt will come to an end.

I will strengthen them in Yahweh,
and they will march in His name—
this is Yahweh’s declaration.

Open your gates, Lebanon,
and fire will consume your cedars.

Indeed, I will no longer have compassion on the inhabitants of the land”—this is the Lord’s declaration. “Instead, I will turn everyone over to his neighbor and his king. They will devastate the land, and I will not deliver it from them.”

Then I said, “I will no longer shepherd you. Let what is dying die, and let what is going astray go astray; let the rest devour each other’s flesh.”

I am about to raise up a shepherd in the land who will not care for those who are going astray, and he will not seek the lost or heal the broken. He will not sustain the healthy, but he will devour the flesh of the fat sheep and tear off their hooves.

“Look, I will make Jerusalem a cup that causes staggering for the peoples who surround the city. The siege against Jerusalem will also involve Judah.

On that day I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all the peoples; all who try to lift it will injure themselves severely when all the nations of the earth gather against her.

On that day”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“I will strike every horse with panic and its rider with madness. I will keep a watchful eye on the house of Judah but strike all the horses of the nations with blindness.

Then each of the leaders of Judah will think to himself: The residents of Jerusalem are my strength through the Lord of Hosts, their God.

On that day I will make the leaders of Judah like a firepot in a woodpile, like a flaming torch among sheaves; they will consume all the peoples around them on the right and the left, while Jerusalem continues to be inhabited on its site, in Jerusalem.

The Lord will save the tents of Judah first, so that the glory of David’s house and the glory of Jerusalem’s residents may not be greater than that of Judah.

On that day the Lord will defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that on that day the one who is weakest among them will be like David on that day, and the house of David will be like God, like the Angel of the Lord, before them.

On that day I will set out to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.

“Then I will pour out a spirit of grace and prayer on the house of David and the residents of Jerusalem, and they will look at Me whom they pierced. They will mourn for Him as one mourns for an only child and weep bitterly for Him as one weeps for a firstborn.

On that day the mourning in Jerusalem will be as great as the mourning of Hadad-rimmon in the plain of Megiddo.

The land will mourn, every family by itself: the family of David’s house by itself and their women by themselves; the family of Nathan’s house by itself and their women by themselves;

“On that day a fountain will be opened for the house of David and for the residents of Jerusalem, to wash away sin and impurity.

On that day”—this is the declaration of the Lord of Hosts—“I will erase the names of the idols from the land, and they will no longer be remembered. I will remove the prophets and the unclean spirit from the land.

If a man still prophesies, his father and his mother who bore him will say to him: You cannot remain alive because you have spoken falsely in the name of Yahweh. When he prophesies, his father and his mother who bore him will pierce him through.

On that day every prophet will be ashamed of his vision when he prophesies; they will not put on a hairy cloak in order to deceive.

He will say: I am not a prophet; I work the land, for a man purchased me as a servant since my youth.

If someone asks him: What are these wounds on your chest?—then he will answer: I received the wounds in the house of my friends.

Sword, awake against My shepherd,
against the man who is My associate—
this is the declaration of the Lord of Hosts.
Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered;
I will also turn My hand against the little ones.

In the whole land—
this is the Lord’s declaration—
two-thirds will be cut off and die,
but a third will be left in it.

I will put this third through the fire;
I will refine them as silver is refined
and test them as gold is tested.
They will call on My name,
and I will answer them.
I will say: They are My people,
and they will say: Yahweh is our God.”

A day of the Lord is coming when your plunder will be divided in your presence.

I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem for battle. The city will be captured, the houses looted, and the women raped. Half the city will go into exile, but the rest of the people will not be removed from the city.

Then the Lord will go out to fight against those nations as 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. The Mount of Olives will be split in half from east to west, forming a huge valley, so that half the mountain will move to the north and half to the south.

You will flee by My mountain valley, for the valley of the mountains will extend to Azal. You will flee as you fled from the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah. Then the Lord my God will come and all the holy ones with Him.

On that day there will be no light; the sunlight and moonlight will diminish.

It will be a day known only to Yahweh, without day or night, but there will be light at evening.

On that day living water will flow out from Jerusalem, half of it toward the eastern sea and the other half toward the western sea, in summer and winter alike.

On that day Yahweh will become King over all the earth—Yahweh alone, and His name alone.

All the land from Geba to Rimmon south of Jerusalem will be changed into a plain. But Jerusalem will be raised up and will remain on its site from the Benjamin Gate to the place of the First Gate, to the Corner Gate, and from the Tower of Hananel to the royal winepresses.

People will live there, and never again will there be a curse of complete destruction. So Jerusalem will dwell in security.

This will be the plague the Lord strikes all the peoples with, who have warred against Jerusalem: their flesh will rot while they stand on their feet, their eyes will rot in their sockets, and their tongues will rot in their mouths.

On that day a great panic from the Lord will be among them, so that each will seize the hand of another, and the hand of one will rise against the other.

Judah will also fight at Jerusalem, and the wealth of all the surrounding nations will be collected: gold, silver, and clothing in great abundance.

The same plague as the previous one will strike the horses, mules, camels, donkeys, and all the animals that are in those camps.

Then all the survivors from the nations that came against Jerusalem will go up year after year to worship the King, the Lord of Hosts, and to celebrate the Festival of Booths.

Should any of the families of the earth not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of Hosts, rain will not fall on them.

And if the people of Egypt will not go up and enter, then rain will not fall on them; this will be the plague the Lord inflicts on the nations who do not go up to celebrate the Festival of Booths.

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

On that day, the words

HOLY TO THE LORD

will be on the bells of the horses. The pots in the house of the Lord will be like the sprinkling basins before the altar.

Every pot in Jerusalem and in Judah will be holy to the Lord of Hosts. Everyone who sacrifices will come and take some of the pots to cook in. And on that day there will no longer be a Canaanite in the house of the Lord of Hosts.

Though Edom says: “We have been devastated, but we will rebuild the ruins,” the Lord of Hosts says this: “They may build, but I will demolish. They will be called a wicked country and the people the Lord has cursed forever.

Your own eyes will see this, and you yourselves will say, ‘The Lord is great, even beyond the borders of Israel.’

“And now ask for God’s favor. Will He be gracious to us? Since this has come from your hands, will He show any of you favor?” asks the Lord of Hosts.

“I wish one of you would shut the temple doors, so you would no longer kindle a useless fire on My altar! I am not pleased with you,” says the Lord of Hosts, “and I will accept no offering from your hands.

“For My name will be great among the nations, from the rising of the sun to its setting. Incense and pure offerings will be presented in My name in every place because My name will be great among the nations,” says Yahweh of Hosts.

“The deceiver is cursed who has an acceptable male in his flock and makes a vow but sacrifices a defective animal to the Lord. For I am a great King,” says Yahweh of Hosts, “and My name will be feared among the nations.

If you don’t listen, and if you don’t take it to heart to honor My name,” says Yahweh of Hosts, “I will send a curse among you, and I will curse your blessings. In fact, I have already begun to curse them because you are not taking it to heart.

“Look, I am going to rebuke your descendants, and I will spread animal waste over your faces, the waste from your festival sacrifices, and you will be taken away with it.

Then you will know that I sent you this decree so My covenant with Levi may continue,” says the Lord of Hosts.

“See, I am going to send My messenger, and he will clear the way before Me. Then the Lord you seek will suddenly come to His temple, the Messenger of the covenant you desire—see, He is coming,” says the Lord of Hosts.

But who can endure the day of His coming? And who will be able to stand when He appears? For He will be like a refiner’s fire and like cleansing lye.

He will be like a refiner and purifier of silver; He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver. Then they will present offerings to the Lord in righteousness.

And the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will please the Lord as in days of old and years gone by.

“I will come to you in judgment, and I will be ready to witness against sorcerers and adulterers; against those who swear falsely; against those who oppress the widow and the fatherless, and cheat the wage earner; and against those who deny justice to the foreigner. They do not fear Me,” says the Lord of Hosts.

“Since the days of your fathers, you have turned from My statutes; you have not kept them. Return to Me, and I will return to you,” says the Lord of Hosts.

But you ask: “How can we return?”

“Will a man rob God? Yet you are robbing Me!”

You ask: “How do we rob You?”

“By not making the payments of the tenth and the contributions.

Bring the full tenth into the storehouse so that there may be food in My house. Test Me in this way,” says the Lord of Hosts. “See if I will not open the floodgates of heaven and pour out a blessing for you without measure.

I will rebuke the devourer for you, so that it will not ruin the produce of your land and your vine in your field will not fail to produce fruit,” says the Lord of Hosts.

“Then all the nations will consider you fortunate, for you will be a delightful land,” says the Lord of Hosts.

“They will be Mine,” says the Lord of Hosts, “a special possession on the day I am preparing. I will have compassion on them as a man has compassion on his son who serves him.

So you will again see the difference between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve Him.

“For indeed, the day is coming, burning like a furnace, when all the arrogant and everyone who commits wickedness will become stubble. The coming day will consume them,” says the Lord of Hosts, “not leaving them root or branches.

But for you who fear My name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings, and you will go out and playfully jump like calves from the stall.

You will trample the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day I am preparing,” says the Lord of Hosts.

And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers. Otherwise, I will come and strike the land with a curse.”

She will give birth to a son, and you are to name Him Jesus, because He will save His people from their sins.”

See, the virgin will become pregnant
and give birth to a son,
and they will name Him Immanuel,

which is translated “God is with us.”

And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the leaders of Judah:
because out of you will come a leader
who will shepherd My people Israel.”

Then he went and settled in a town called Nazareth to fulfill what was spoken through the prophets, that He will be called a Nazarene.

John himself had a camel-hair garment with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey.

Even now the ax is ready to strike the root of the trees! Therefore, every tree that doesn’t produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.

“I baptize you with water for repentance, but the One who is coming after me is more powerful than I. I am not worthy to remove His sandals. He Himself will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

His winnowing shovel is in His hand, and He will clear His threshing floor and gather His wheat into the barn. But the chaff He will burn up with fire that never goes out.”

and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down. For it is written:

He will give His angels orders concerning you,
and they will support you with their hands
so that you will not strike
your foot against a stone.”

And he said to Him, “I will give You all these things if You will fall down and worship me.”