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1In the eighth month, in the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came to the prophet Zechariah son of Berechiah son of Iddo, saying: ²The Lord was very angry with your ancestors. ³Therefore say to them, Thus says the Lord of hosts: Return to me, says the Lord of hosts, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts. ⁴Do not be like your ancestors, to whom the former prophets proclaimed, “Thus says the Lord of hosts, Return from your evil ways and from your evil deeds.” But they did not hear or heed me, says the Lord. ⁵Your ancestors, where are they? And the prophets, do they live forever? ⁶But my words and my statutes, which I commanded my servants the prophets, did they not overtake your ancestors? So they repented and said, “The Lord of hosts has dealt with us according to our ways and deeds, just as he planned to do.”

⁷On the twenty-fourth day of the eleventh month, the month of Shebat, in the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came to the prophet Zechariah son of Berechiah son of Iddo; and Zechariah said, ⁸In the night I saw a man riding on a red horse! He was standing among the myrtle trees in the glen; and behind him were red, sorrel, and white horses. ⁹Then I said, “What are these, my lord?” The angel who talked with me said to me, “I will show you what they are.” ¹⁰So the man who was standing among the myrtle trees answered, “They are those whom the Lord has sent to patrol the earth.” ¹¹Then they spoke to the angel of the Lord who was standing among the myrtle trees, “We have patrolled the earth, and lo, the whole earth remains at peace.” ¹²Then the angel of the Lord said, “O Lord of hosts, how long will you withhold mercy from Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, with which you have been angry these seventy years?” ¹³Then the Lord replied with gracious and comforting words to the angel who talked with me. ¹⁴So the angel who talked with me said to me, Proclaim this message: Thus says the Lord of hosts; I am very jealous for Jerusalem and for Zion. ¹⁵And I am extremely angry with the nations that are at ease; for while I was only a little angry, they made the disaster worse. ¹⁶Therefore, thus says the Lord, I have returned to Jerusalem with compassion; my house shall be built in it, says the Lord of hosts, and the measuring line shall be stretched out over Jerusalem. ¹⁷Proclaim further: Thus says the Lord of hosts: My cities shall again overflow with prosperity; the Lord will again comfort Zion and again choose Jerusalem.

¹⁸And I looked up and saw four horns. ¹⁹I asked the angel who talked with me, “What are these?” And he answered me, “These are the horns that have scattered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem.” ²⁰Then the Lord showed me four blacksmiths. ²¹And I asked, “What are they coming to do?” He answered, “These are the horns that scattered Judah, so that no head could be raised; but these have come to terrify them, to strike down the horns of the nations that lifted up their horns against the land of Judah to scatter its people.”

2I looked up and saw a man with a measuring line in his hand. ²Then I asked, “Where are you going?” He answered me, “To measure Jerusalem, to see what is its width and what is its length.” ³Then the angel who talked with me came forward, and another angel came forward to meet him, ⁴and said to him, “Run, say to that young man: Jerusalem shall be inhabited like villages without walls, because of the multitude of people and animals in it. ⁵For I will be a wall of fire all around it, says the Lord, and I will be the glory within it.”

⁶Up, up! Flee from the land of the north, says the Lord; for I have spread you abroad like the four winds of heaven, says the Lord. ⁷Up! Escape to Zion, you that live with daughter Babylon. ⁸For thus said the Lord of hosts (after his glory sent me) regarding the nations that plundered you: Truly, one who touches you touches the apple of my eye. ⁹See now, I am going to raise my hand against them, and they shall become plunder for their own slaves. Then you will know that the Lord of hosts has sent me.

¹⁰Sing and rejoice, O daughter Zion! For lo, I will come and dwell in your midst, says the Lord. ¹¹Many nations shall join themselves to the Lord on that day, and shall be my people; and I will dwell in your midst. And you shall know that the Lord of hosts has sent me to you. ¹²The Lord will inherit Judah as his portion in the holy land, and will again choose Jerusalem. ¹³Be silent, all people, before the Lord; for he has roused himself from his holy dwelling.

3Then he showed me the high priest Joshua standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him. ²And the Lord said to Satan, “The Lord rebuke you, O Satan! The Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is not this man a brand plucked from the fire?” ³Now Joshua was dressed with filthy clothes as he stood before the angel. ⁴The angel said to those who were standing before him, “Take off his filthy clothes.” And to him he said, “See, I have taken your guilt away from you, and I will clothe you with festal apparel.” ⁵And I said, “Let them put a clean turban on his head.” So they put a clean turban on his head and clothed him with the apparel; and the angel of the Lord was standing by. ⁶Then the angel of the Lord assured Joshua, saying ⁷“Thus says the Lord of hosts: If you will walk in my ways and keep my requirements, then you shall rule my house and have charge of my courts, and I will give you the right of access among those who are standing here.

⁸Now listen, Joshua, high priest, you and your colleagues who sit before you! For they are an omen of things to come: I am going to bring my servant the Branch. ⁹For on the stone that I have set before Joshua, on a single stone with seven facets, I will engrave its inscription, says the Lord of hosts, and I will remove the guilt of this land in a single day. ¹⁰On that day, says the Lord of hosts, you shall invite each other to come under your vine and fig tree.”

4The angel who talked with me came again, and wakened me, as one is wakened from sleep. ²He said to me, “What do you see?” And I said, “I see a lampstand all of gold, with a bowl on the top of it; there are seven lamps on it, with seven lips on each of the lamps that are on the top of it. ³And by it there are two olive trees, one on the right of the bowl and the other on its left.” ⁴I said to the angel who talked with me, “What are these, my lord?” ⁵Then the angel who talked with me answered me, “Do you not know what these are?” I said, “No, my lord.” ⁶He said to me, “This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord of hosts. ⁷What are you, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you shall become a plain; and he shall bring out the top stone amid shouts of ‘Grace, grace to it!’” ⁸Moreover the word of the Lord came to me, saying, ⁹“The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house; his hands shall also complete it. Then you will know that the Lord of hosts has sent me to you. ¹⁰For whoever has despised the day of small things shall rejoice, and shall see the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel. “These seven are the eyes of the Lord, which range through the whole earth.”

¹¹Then I said to him, “What are these two olive trees on the right and the left of the lampstand?” ¹²And a second time I said to him, “What are these two branches of the olive trees, which pour out the oil through the two golden pipes?” ¹³He said to me, “Do you not know what these are?” I said, “No, my lord.” ¹⁴Then he said, “These are the two anointed ones who stand by the Lord of the whole earth.”