Zechariah 8

¹⁸Then the Lord became jealous for His land, and He spared His people.

⁵⁸They enraged Him with their high places and provoked His jealousy with their idols.

⁵⁹On hearing it, God was furious and rejected Israel completely.

¹⁴Then the angel who was speaking with me said, “Proclaim this word: This is what the Lord of Hosts says: ‘I am very jealous for Jerusalem and Zion,

¹⁵but I am fiercely angry with the nations that are at ease. For I was a little angry, but they have added to the calamity.’

²The Lord is a jealous and avenging God; the Lord is avenging and full of wrath. The Lord takes vengeance on His foes and reserves wrath for His enemies.

¹³The Lord goes forth like a mighty one; He stirs up His zeal like a warrior. He shouts; yes, He roars in triumph over His enemies:

¹⁴“I have kept silent from ages past; I have remained quiet and restrained. But now I will groan like a woman in labor; I will at once gasp and pant.

⁵Therefore this is what the Lord God says: Surely in My burning zeal I have spoken against the rest of the nations, and against all Edom, who took My land as their own possession with wholehearted joy and utter contempt, so that its pastureland became plunder.

⁶Therefore, prophesy concerning the land of Israel and tell the mountains and hills, the ravines and valleys, that this is what the Lord God says: Behold, I have spoken in My burning zeal because you have endured the reproach of the nations.

¹⁶Therefore this is what the Lord says: ‘I will return to Jerusalem with mercy, and there My house will be rebuilt, declares the Lord of Hosts, and a measuring line will be stretched out over Jerusalem.’

¹⁴The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

¹⁰As for you, O Jacob My servant, do not be afraid, declares the Lord, and do not be dismayed, O Israel. For I will surely save you out of a distant place, your descendants from the land of their captivity! Jacob will return to quiet and ease, with no one to make him afraid.

¹¹For I am with you to save you, declares the Lord. Though I will completely destroy all the nations to which I have scattered you, I will not completely destroy you. Yet I will discipline you justly, and will by no means leave you unpunished.”

¹⁶In those days Judah will be saved, and Jerusalem will dwell securely, and this is the name by which it will be called: The Lord Our Righteousness.

¹⁰“Shout for joy and be glad, O Daughter of Zion, for I am coming to dwell among you,” declares the Lord.

¹¹“On that day many nations will join themselves to the Lord, and they will become My people. I will dwell among you, and you will know that the Lord of Hosts has sent Me to you.

⁹For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity dwells in bodily form.

²⁰No longer will a nursing infant live but a few days, or an old man fail to live out his years. For the youth will die at a hundred years, and he who fails to reach a hundred will be considered accursed.

²¹They will build houses and dwell in them; they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit.

¹⁷And so Job died, old and full of years.

²²Instead, you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. You have come to myriads of angels

¹¹Women have been ravished in Zion, virgins in the cities of Judah.

¹²Princes have been hung up by their hands; elders receive no respect.

³¹Behold, the days are coming when I will cut off your strength and the strength of your father’s house, so that no one in it will reach old age.

²⁶You will come to the grave in full vigor, like a sheaf of grain gathered in season.

¹³Then the maidens will rejoice with dancing, young men and old as well. I will turn their mourning into joy, and give them comfort and joy for their sorrow.

¹⁹Thanksgiving will proceed from them, a sound of celebration. I will multiply them, and they will not be decreased; I will honor them, and they will not be belittled.

²⁰Their children will be as in days of old, and their congregation will be established before Me; and I will punish all their oppressors.

⁴and said to him, “Run and tell that young man: ‘Jerusalem will be a city without walls because of the multitude of men and livestock within it.

²⁷“The days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man and of beast.

¹¹the sounds of joy and gladness, the voices of the bride and bridegroom, and the voices of those bringing thank offerings into the house of the Lord, saying: ‘Give thanks to the Lord of Hosts, for the Lord is good; His loving devotion endures forever.’ For I will restore the land from captivity as in former times, says the Lord.

¹²Then our sons will be like plants nurtured in their youth, our daughters like corner pillars carved to adorn a palace.

¹³Our storehouses will be full, supplying all manner of produce; our flocks will bring forth thousands, tens of thousands in our fields.

²⁷“Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is anything too difficult for Me?

²⁷But Jesus said, “What is impossible with man is possible with God.”

²⁰Yet he did not waver through disbelief in the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God,

²¹being fully persuaded that God was able to do what He had promised.

³⁷For no word from God will ever fail.”

²²If all our flocks and herds were slaughtered for them, would they have enough? Or if all the fish in the sea were caught for them, would they have enough?”

²³The Lord answered Moses, “Is the Lord’s arm too short? Now you will see whether or not My word will come to pass.”

¹⁴Is anything too difficult for the Lord? At the appointed time I will return to you—in about a year—and Sarah will have a son.”

⁸Behold, I will bring them from the land of the north and gather them from the farthest parts of the earth, including the blind and the lame, expectant mothers and women in labor. They will return as a great assembly!

⁵Do not be afraid, for I am with you; I will bring your offspring from the east and gather you from the west.

⁶I will say to the north, ‘Give them up!’ and to the south, ‘Do not hold them back!’ Bring My sons from afar, and My daughters from the ends of the earth—

¹²Behold, they will come from far away, from the north and from the west, and from the land of Aswan.”

¹²In that day the Lord will thresh from the flowing Euphrates to the Wadi of Egypt, and you, O Israelites, will be gathered one by one.

¹³And in that day a great ram’s horn will sound, and those who were perishing in Assyria will come forth with those who were exiles in Egypt. And they will worship the Lord on the holy mountain in Jerusalem.

¹⁴I will restore My people Israel from captivity; they will rebuild and inhabit the ruined cities. They will plant vineyards and drink their wine; they will make gardens and eat their fruit.

¹⁵I will firmly plant them in their own land, never again to be uprooted from the land that I have given them,” says the Lord your God.

¹¹For My name will be great among the nations, from where the sun rises to where it sets. In every place, incense and pure offerings will be presented in My name, because My name will be great among the nations,” says the Lord of Hosts.

²⁸Then you will live in the land that I gave your forefathers; you will be My people, and I will be your God.

²⁰so that they may follow My statutes, keep My ordinances, and practice them. Then they will be My people, and I will be their God.

³³“But this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord. I will put My law in their minds and inscribe it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they will be My people.

²and if you can swear, ‘As surely as the Lord lives,’ in truth, in justice, and in righteousness, then the nations will be blessed by Him, and in Him they will glory.”

³And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying: “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man, and He will dwell with them. They will be His people, and God Himself will be with them as their God.

⁷The one who overcomes will inherit all things, and I will be his God, and he will be My son.

⁴Say to those with anxious hearts: “Be strong, do not fear! Behold, your God will come with vengeance. With divine retribution He will come to save you.”

¹You therefore, my child, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.

¹³Then you will succeed, if you carefully follow the statutes and ordinances that the Lord commanded Moses for Israel. Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or discouraged.

¹Later, the prophets Haggai and Zechariah son of Iddo prophesied to the Jews in Judah and Jerusalem in the name of the God of Israel, who was over them.

²Then Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel and Jeshua son of Jozadak rose up and began to rebuild the house of God in Jerusalem. And the prophets of God were with them, helping them.

²¹“Tell Zerubbabel governor of Judah that I am about to shake the heavens and the earth:

¹⁰Finally, be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power.

⁶You have planted much but harvested little. You eat but never have enough. You drink but never have your fill. You put on clothes but never get warm. You earn wages to put into a bag pierced through.”

⁷This is what the Lord of Hosts says: “Consider carefully your ways.

⁴Though they are driven by their enemies into captivity, there I will command the sword to slay them. I will fix My eyes upon them for harm and not for good.”

²“So I will incite Egyptian against Egyptian; brother will fight against brother, neighbor against neighbor, city against city, and kingdom against kingdom.

¹⁶from that time, when one came expecting a heap of twenty ephahs of grain, there were but ten. When one came to the winepress to draw out fifty baths, there were but twenty.

¹⁷I struck you—all the work of your hands—with blight, mildew, and hail, but you did not turn to Me, declares the Lord.

⁶If a ram’s horn sounds in a city, do the people not tremble? If calamity comes to a city, has not the Lord caused it?

¹¹the voices of the singers at the watering places. There they shall recount the righteous acts of the Lord, the righteous deeds of His villagers in Israel. Then the people of the Lord went down to the gates:

¹In that day you will say: “O Lord, I will praise You. Although You were angry with me, Your anger has turned away, and You have comforted me.

¹⁹Is there still seed in the barn? The vine, the fig, the pomegranate, and the olive tree have not yet yielded fruit. But from this day on, I will bless you.”

⁹He will not always accuse us, nor harbor His anger forever.

⁸I will bring them back to dwell in Jerusalem, where they will be My people, and I will be their faithful and righteous God.”

⁹This is what the Lord of Hosts says: “Let your hands be strong, you who now hear these words spoken by the prophets who were present when the foundations were laid to rebuild the temple, the house of the Lord of Hosts.

⁹You are cursed with a curse, yet you—the whole nation—are still robbing Me.

¹⁰Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house. Test Me in this,” says the Lord of Hosts. “See if I will not open the windows of heaven and pour out for you blessing without measure.

¹³Then the jealousy of Ephraim will depart, and the adversaries of Judah will be cut off. Ephraim will no longer envy Judah, nor will Judah harass Ephraim.

⁴I will give you rains in their season, and the land will yield its produce, and the trees of the field will bear their fruit.

⁵Your threshing will continue until the grape harvest, and the grape harvest will continue until sowing time; you will have your fill of food to eat and will dwell securely in your land.

¹³Concerning Joseph he said: “May his land be blessed by the Lord with the precious dew from heaven above and the deep waters that lie beneath,

²⁸May God give to you the dew of heaven and the richness of the earth—an abundance of grain and new wine.

³³But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you.

³⁰I will also make the fruit of the trees and the crops of the field plentiful, so that you will no longer bear reproach among the nations on account of famine.

²²Do not be afraid, O beasts of the field, for the open pastures have turned green, the trees bear their fruit, and the fig tree and vine yield their best.

²⁰At that time I will bring you in; yes, at that time I will gather you. For I will give you fame and praise among all the peoples of the earth when I restore your captives before your very eyes,” says the Lord.

¹³Be on the alert. Stand firm in the faith. Be men of courage. Be strong.

¹⁷May his name endure forever; may his name continue as long as the sun shines. In him may all nations be blessed; may they call him blessed.

⁹This is what the Lord of Hosts says: “Let your hands be strong, you who now hear these words spoken by the prophets who were present when the foundations were laid to rebuild the temple, the house of the Lord of Hosts.

²I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.

³I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you; and all the families of the earth will be blessed through you.”

¹⁵So you will be a reproach and a taunt, a warning and a horror to the nations around you, when I execute judgments against you in anger, wrath, and raging fury. I, the Lord, have spoken.

¹⁴I, the Lord, have spoken; the time is coming, and I will act. I will not refrain or show pity, nor will I relent. I will judge you according to your ways and deeds,’ declares the Lord God.”

²⁸Just as I watched over them to uproot and tear down, to demolish, destroy, and bring disaster, so I will watch over them to build and to plant,” declares the Lord.

²⁸Therefore the earth will mourn and the heavens above will grow dark. I have spoken, I have planned, and I will not relent or turn back.”

¹⁶But they mocked the messengers of God, despising His words and scoffing at His prophets, until the wrath of the Lord against His people was stirred up beyond remedy.

²⁴The Lord of Hosts has sworn: “Surely, as I have planned, so will it be; as I have purposed, so will it stand.

¹⁶May that man be like the cities that the Lord overthrew without compassion. May he hear an outcry in the morning and a battle cry at noon,

¹³As you have been a curse among the nations, O house of Judah and house of Israel, so I will save you, and you will be a blessing. Do not be afraid; let your hands be strong.”

¹⁸Who is a God like You, who pardons iniquity and passes over the transgression of the remnant of His inheritance—who does not retain His anger forever, because He delights in loving devotion?

¹⁹He will again have compassion on us; He will vanquish our iniquities. You will cast out all our sins into the depths of the sea.

³²Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father is pleased to give you the kingdom.

¹⁰Writhe in agony, O Daughter of Zion, like a woman in labor. For now you will leave the city and camp in the open fields. You will go to Babylon; there you will be rescued; there the Lord will redeem you from the hand of your enemies!

¹¹But now many nations have assembled against you, saying, “Let her be defiled, and let us feast our eyes on Zion.”

⁴²For this is what the Lord says: Just as I have brought all this great disaster on this people, so I will bring on them all the good I have promised them.

¹¹For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, to give you a future and a hope.

¹²Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you.

²⁵Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor, for we are all members of one another.

⁹“This is what the Lord of Hosts says: ‘Administer true justice. Show loving devotion and compassion to one another.

²He who walks with integrity and practices righteousness, who speaks the truth from his heart,

⁸Produce fruit, then, in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham.

⁹The axe lies ready at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.”

¹²And now, O Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you but to fear the Lord your God by walking in all His ways, to love Him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul,

¹³and to keep the commandments and statutes of the Lord that I am giving you this day for your own good?

¹⁹“This is what the Lord of Hosts says: The fasts of the fourth, the fifth, the seventh, and the tenth months will become times of joy and gladness, cheerful feasts for the house of Judah. Therefore you are to love both truth and peace.”

¹⁶There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are detestable to Him:

¹⁷haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood,

²⁹Do not devise evil against your neighbor, for he trustfully dwells beside you.

³For the wicked man boasts in the cravings of his heart; he blesses the greedy and reviles the Lord.

¹³Your eyes are too pure to look upon evil, and You cannot tolerate wrongdoing. So why do You tolerate the faithless? Why are You silent while the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves?

¹Woe to those who devise iniquity and plot evil on their beds! At morning’s light they accomplish it because the power is in their hands.

²They covet fields and seize them; they take away houses. They deprive a man of his home, a fellow man of his inheritance.

⁵“Then I will draw near to you for judgment. And I will be a swift witness against sorcerers and adulterers and perjurers, against oppressors of the widowed and fatherless, and against those who defraud laborers of their wages and deny justice to the foreigner but do not fear Me,” says the Lord of Hosts.

¹⁶These are the things you must do: Speak truth to one another, render true and sound judgments in your gates,

²And on the ninth day of the fourth month of Zedekiah’s eleventh year, the city was breached.

³by asking the priests of the house of the Lord of Hosts, as well as the prophets, “Should I weep and fast in the fifth month, as I have done these many years?”

⁵“Ask all the people of the land and the priests, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months for these seventy years, was it really for Me that you fasted?

²⁵In the seventh month, however, Ishmael son of Nethaniah, the son of Elishama, who was a member of the royal family, came with ten men and struck down and killed Gedaliah, along with the Judeans and Chaldeans who were with him at Mizpah.

¹¹You turned my mourning into dancing; You peeled off my sackcloth and clothed me with joy,

²In the last days the mountain of the house of the Lord will be established as the chief of the mountains; it will be raised above the hills, and all nations will stream to it.

³And many peoples will come and say: “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us His ways so that we may walk in His paths.” For the law will go forth from Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

¹¹“On that day many nations will join themselves to the Lord, and they will become My people. I will dwell among you, and you will know that the Lord of Hosts has sent Me to you.

¹In the last days the mountain of the house of the Lord will be established as the chief of the mountains; it will be raised above the hills, and the peoples will stream to it.

²And many nations will come and say: “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us His ways, so that we may walk in His paths.” For the law will go forth from Zion and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

³Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.

⁴Lift up your eyes and look around: They all gather and come to you; your sons will come from afar, and your daughters will be carried on the arm.

¹⁹O Lord, my strength and my fortress, my refuge in the day of distress, the nations will come to You from the ends of the earth, and they will say, “Our fathers inherited nothing but lies, worthless idols of no benefit at all.

¹¹I say to you that many will come from the east and the west to share the banquet with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.

²Now the people of Bethel had sent Sharezer and Regem-melech, along with their men, to plead before the Lord

¹Hallelujah! Praise the Lord, O my soul.

²I will praise the Lord all my life; I will sing praises to my God while I have my being.

³So let us know—let us press on to know the Lord. As surely as the sun rises, He will appear; He will come to us like the rain, like the spring showers that water the earth.

¹A song of ascents. Of David. I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord.”

²Our feet are standing in your gates, O Jerusalem.

²²Bless the Lord, all His works in all places of His dominion. Bless the Lord, O my soul!

²¹and the residents of one city will go to another, saying: ‘Let us go at once to plead before the Lord and to seek the Lord of Hosts. I myself am going.’

⁷On this mountain He will swallow up the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations;

²⁴By its light the nations will walk, and into it the kings of the earth will bring their glory.

⁴Who will not fear You, O Lord, and glorify Your name? For You alone are holy. All nations will come and worship before You, for Your righteous acts have been revealed.”

³Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.

⁴Lift up your eyes and look around: They all gather and come to you; your sons will come from afar, and your daughters will be carried on the arm.

⁵Surely you will summon a nation you do not know, and nations who do not know you will run to you. For the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, has bestowed glory on you.”

⁵Surely you will summon a nation you do not know, and nations who do not know you will run to you. For the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, has bestowed glory on you.”

²⁵and the secrets of his heart will be made known. So he will fall facedown and worship God, proclaiming, “God is truly among you!”

³Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.

¹⁴This is what the Lord says: “The products of Egypt and the merchandise of Cush, along with the Sabeans, men of stature, will come over to you and will be yours; they will trudge behind you; they will come over in chains and bow down to you. They will confess to you: ‘God is indeed with you, and there is no other; there is no other God.’”

¹⁶But Ruth replied: “Do not urge me to leave you or to turn from following you. For wherever you go, I will go, and wherever you live, I will live; your people will be my people, and your God will be my God.

¹⁷Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord punish me, and ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me.”

⁹and said to them, “I know that the Lord has given you this land and that the fear of you has fallen on us, so that all who dwell in the land are melting in fear of you.

¹⁰For we have heard how the Lord dried up the waters of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to Sihon and Og, the two kings of the Amorites across the Jordan, whom you devoted to destruction.