Zechariah 9–14

Judgment on Israel’s Enemies

⁹An Oracle.

The word of the Lord is against the land of Hadrach

and will rest upon Damascus.

For to the Lord belongs the capital^c of Aram,^d

as do all the tribes of Israel;

²Hamath also, which borders on it,

Tyre and Sidon, though they are very wise.^*

³Tyre has built itself a rampart

and heaped up silver like dust

and gold like the dirt of the streets.^*

⁴But now, the Lord will strip it of its possessions

and hurl its wealth into the sea,

and it shall be devoured by fire.^*

⁵Ashkelon shall see it and be afraid;

Gaza, too, and shall writhe in anguish;

Ekron also, because its hopes are withered.

The king shall perish from Gaza;

Ashkelon shall be uninhabited;^*

⁶a mongrel people shall settle in Ashdod,

and I will make an end of the pride of Philistia.^*

⁷I will take away its blood from its mouth

and its abominations from between its teeth;

it, too, shall be a remnant for our God;

it shall be like a clan in Judah,

and Ekron shall be like the Jebusites.^*

⁸Then I will encamp at my house as a guard,

so that no one shall march to and fro;

no oppressor shall again overrun them,

for now I have seen with my own eyes.^*

The Coming Ruler of God’s People

⁹Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion!

Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem!

See, your king comes to you;

triumphant and victorious is he,

humble and riding on a donkey,

on a colt, the foal of a donkey.^*

¹⁰He^e will cut off the chariot from Ephraim

and the war horse from Jerusalem;

and the battle bow shall be cut off,

and he shall command peace to the nations;

his dominion shall be from sea to sea

and from the River to the ends of the earth.^*

¹¹As for you also, because of the blood of my covenant with you,

I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit.^*

¹²Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope;

today I declare that I will restore to you double.^*

¹³For I have bent Judah as my bow;

I have made Ephraim its arrow.^f

I will arouse your sons, O Zion,

against your sons, O Greece,

and wield you like a warrior’s sword.^*

¹⁴Then the Lord will appear over them,

and his arrow go forth like lightning;

the Lord God will sound the trumpet

and march forth in the whirlwinds of the south.^*

¹⁵The Lord of hosts will protect them,

and they shall consume and conquer the slingers;^g

they shall drink their blood^h like wine

and be full like a bowl,

drenched like the corners of the altar.^*

¹⁶On that day the Lord their God will save them,

for they are the flock of his people,

for like the jewels of a crown

they shall shine on his land.^*

¹⁷For what goodness and beauty are his!

Grain shall make the young men flourish,

and new wine the young women.^*

Restoration of Judah and Israel

¹⁰Ask rain from the Lord

in the season of the spring rain,

from the Lord who makes the storm clouds,

who gives showers of rain to you,ⁱ

the vegetation in the field to everyone.^*

²For the teraphim^j utter nonsense,

and the diviners see lies;

the dreamers tell false dreams

and give empty consolation.

Therefore the people^k wander like sheep;

they suffer for lack of a shepherd.^*

³My anger is hot against the shepherds,

and I will punish the leaders,^l

for the Lord of hosts cares for his flock, the house of Judah,

and will make them like his proud war horse.^*

⁴Out of them shall come the cornerstone,

out of them the tent peg,

out of them the battle bow,

out of them every commander.^*

⁵Together they shall be like warriors in battle,

trampling the foe in the mud of the streets;

they shall fight, for the Lord is with them,

and they shall put to shame the riders on horses.^*

⁶I will strengthen the house of Judah,

and I will save the house of Joseph.

I will bring them back because I have compassion on them,

and they shall be as though I had not rejected them,

for I am the Lord their God, and I will answer them.^*

⁷Then the people of Ephraim shall become like warriors,

and their hearts shall be glad as with wine.

Their children shall see it and rejoice;

their hearts shall exult in the Lord.^*

⁸I will signal for them and gather them in,

for I have redeemed them,

and they shall be as numerous as they were before.^*

⁹Though I scattered them among the nations,

yet in far countries they shall remember me,

and they shall rear their children and return.^*

¹⁰I will bring them home from the land of Egypt

and gather them from Assyria;

I will bring them to the land of Gilead and to Lebanon,

until there is no room for them.^*

¹¹They^m shall pass through the sea of distress,

and the waves of the sea shall be struck down,

and all the depths of the Nile dried up.

The pride of Assyria shall be laid low,

and the scepter of Egypt shall depart.^*

¹²I will make them strong in the Lord,

and they shall walk in his name,

says the Lord.^*

¹¹Open your doors, O Lebanon,

so that fire may devour your cedars!^*

²Wail, O cypress, for the cedar has fallen,

for the glorious trees are ruined!

Wail, oaks of Bashan,

for the thick forest has been felled!^*

³Listen, the wail of the shepherds,

for their glory is despoiled!

Listen, the roar of the lions,

for the thickets of the Jordan are destroyed!^*

Two Kinds of Shepherds

⁴“Thus says the Lord my God: Be a shepherd of the flock doomed to slaughter.^{* 5}Those who buy them kill them and go unpunished, and those who sell them say, ‘Blessed be the Lord, for I have become rich,’ and their own shepherds have no pity on them.^{* 6}For I will no longer have pity on the inhabitants of the earth, says the Lord. I will cause them, every one, to fall each into the hand of a neighbor and each into the hand of the king, and they shall devastate the earth, and I will deliver no one from their hand.”^*

⁷So on behalf of the sheep merchants,ⁿ I became the shepherd of the flock doomed to slaughter. I took two staffs; one I named Favor, the other I named Unity, and I tended the sheep.^{* 8}In one month I disposed of the three shepherds, for I had become impatient with them, and they also detested me.^{* 9}So I said, “I will not be your shepherd. What is to die, let it die; what is to be destroyed, let it be destroyed; and let those that are left devour the flesh of one another!” ¹⁰I took my staff Favor and broke it, annulling the covenant that I had made with all the peoples.^{* 11}So it was annulled on that day, and the sheep merchants^o who were watching me knew that it was the word of the Lord.^{* 12}I then said to them, “If it seems right to you, give me my wages, but if not, keep them.” So they weighed out as my wages thirty shekels of silver.^{* 13}Then the Lord said to me, “Throw it into the treasury”^p—this lordly price at which I was valued by them. So I took the thirty shekels of silver and threw them into the treasury^q in the house of the Lord.^{* 14}Then I broke my second staff Unity, annulling the family ties between Judah and Israel.

¹⁵Then the Lord said to me: “Take once more the implements of a worthless shepherd.^{* 16}For I am now raising up in the land a shepherd who does not care for the perishing, or seek the wandering,^r or heal the maimed, or nourish the healthy,^s but devours the flesh of the fat ones, tearing off even their hoofs.

¹⁷Oh, my worthless shepherd,

who deserts the flock!

May the sword strike his arm

and his right eye!

Let his arm be completely withered,

his right eye utterly blinded!”^*

Jerusalem’s Victory

¹²An Oracle.

The word of the Lord concerning Israel: Thus says the Lord, who stretched out the heavens and founded the earth and formed the human spirit within:^{* 2}See, I am about to make Jerusalem a cup of reeling for all the surrounding peoples; it will be against Judah also in the siege against Jerusalem.^{* 3}On that day I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all the peoples; all who lift it shall grievously hurt themselves. And all the nations of the earth shall come together against it.^{* 4}On that day, says the Lord, I will strike every horse with panic and its rider with madness. But on the house of Judah I will keep a watchful eye, when I strike every horse of the peoples with blindness.^{* 5}Then the clans of Judah shall say to themselves, “The inhabitants of Jerusalem have strength through the Lord of hosts, their God.”^*

⁶On that day I will make the clans of Judah like a blazing pot on a pile of wood, like a flaming torch among sheaves, and they shall devour to the right and to the left all the surrounding peoples, while Jerusalem shall again be inhabited in its place, in Jerusalem.^*

⁷And the Lord will save the tents of Judah first, that the glory of the house of David and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem may not be exalted over that of Judah.^{* 8}On that day the Lord will shield the inhabitants of Jerusalem so that the feeblest among them on that day shall be like David, and the house of David shall be like God, like the angel of the Lord, at their head.^{* 9}And on that day I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.^*

Mourning for the Pierced One

¹⁰And I will pour out a spirit of compassion and supplication on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem so that, when they look on the one^t whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him as one mourns for an only child and weep bitterly over him as one weeps over a firstborn.^{* 11}On that day the mourning in Jerusalem will be as great as the mourning for Hadad-rimmon in the plain of Megiddo.^{* 12}The land shall mourn, each family by itself; the family of the house of David by itself and their wives by themselves; the family of the house of Nathan by itself and their wives by themselves; ¹³the family of the house of Levi by itself and their wives by themselves; the family of the Shimeites by itself and their wives by themselves; ¹⁴and all the families that are left, each by itself and their wives by themselves.

¹³On that day a fountain shall be opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and impurity.^*

Idolatry Cut Off

²On that day, says the Lord of hosts, I will cut off the names of the idols from the land, so that they shall be remembered no…