Zechariah 9-11

Zechariah 9

¹A word of the Lord: The Lord has come to the land of Hadrach, and Damascus is his resting-place: for the towns of Aram are the Lord's,

²As well as Hamath, which is by its limit, and Tyre and Zidon, because they are very wise.

³And Tyre made for herself a strong place, and got together silver like dust and the best gold like the earth of the streets.

⁴See, the Lord will take away her heritage, overturning her power in the sea; and she will be burned up with fire.

⁵Ashkelon will see it with fear, and Gaza, bent with pain; and Ekron, for her hope will be shamed: and the king will be cut off from Gaza, and Ashkelon will be unpeopled.

⁶And a mixed people will be living in Ashdod, and I will have the pride of the Philistines cut off.

⁷And I will take away his blood from his mouth, and his disgusting things from between his teeth; and some of his people will be kept for our God: and he will be as a family in Judah, and Ekron as one living in Jerusalem.

⁸And I will put my forces in position round my house, so that there may be no coming and going: and no cruel master will again go through them: for now I have seen his trouble.

⁹Be full of joy, O daughter of Zion; give a glad cry, O daughter of Jerusalem: see, your king comes to you: he is upright and has overcome; gentle and seated on an ass, on a young ass.

¹⁰And he will have the war-carriage cut off from Ephraim, and the horse from Jerusalem, and the bow of war will be cut off: and he will say words of peace to the nations: and his rule will be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth.

¹¹And as for you, because of the blood of your agreement, I have sent out your prisoners from the deep hole in which there is no water.

¹²And they will come back to you, O daughter of Zion, as prisoners of hope: today I say to you that I will give you back twice as much;

¹³For I have made Judah a bow bent for my use, I have made Ephraim the arrows of the bow; I will make your sons, O Zion, take up arms against your sons, O Greece, and will make you like the sword of a man of war.

¹⁴And the Lord will be seen over them, and his arrow will go out like the thunder-flame: and the Lord God, sounding the war-horn, will go in the storm-winds of the South.

¹⁵The Lord of armies will be a cover for them; and they will overcome, crushing under foot the armed men; they will take their blood for drink like wine: they will be full like the sides of the altar.

¹⁶And the Lord their God will be their saviour in that day, giving them food like the flock of his people: for they will be like the jewels of a crown shining over his land.

¹⁷For how good it is and how beautiful! grain will make the young men strong and new wine the virgins.

Zechariah 10

¹Make your request to the Lord for rain in the time of the spring rains, even to the Lord who makes the thunder-flames; and he will give them showers of rain, to every man grass in the field.

²For the images have said what is not true, and the readers of signs have seen deceit; they have given accounts of false dreams, they give comfort to no purpose: so they go out of the way like sheep, they are troubled because they have no keeper.

³My wrath is burning against the keepers of the flock, and I will send punishment on the he-goats: for the Lord of armies takes care of his flock, the people of Judah, and will make them like the horse of his pride in the fight.

⁴From him will come the keystone, from him the nail, from him the bow of war, from him will come every ruler;

⁵Together they will be like men of war, crushing down their haters into the earth of the streets in the fight; they will make war because the Lord is with them: and the horsemen will be shamed.

⁶And I will make the children of Judah strong, and I will be the saviour of the children of Joseph, and I will make them come back again, for I have had mercy on them: they will be as if I had not given them up: for I am the Lord their God and I will give them an answer.

⁷And Ephraim will be like a man of war, and their hearts will be glad as with wine; and their children will see it with joy; their hearts will be glad in the Lord.

⁸With the sound of the pipe I will get them together; for I have given the price to make them free: and they will be increased as they were increased.

⁹Though I had them planted among the peoples, they will keep me in mind in far countries: and they will take care of their children and will come back.

¹⁰And I will make them come back out of the land of Egypt, and will get them together out of Assyria; and I will take them into the land of Gilead, and it will not be wide enough for them.

¹¹And they will go through the sea of Egypt, and all the deep waters of the Nile will become dry: and the pride of Assyria will be made low, and the power of Egypt will be taken away.

¹²And their strength will be in the Lord; and their pride will be in his name, says the Lord.

Zechariah 11

¹Let your doors be open, O Lebanon, so that fire may be burning among your cedars.

²Give a cry of grief, O fir-tree, for the fall of the cedar, because the great ones have been made low: give cries of grief, O you oaks of Bashan, for the strong trees of the wood have come down.

³The sound of the crying of the keepers of the flock! for their glory is made waste: the sound of the loud crying of the young lions! for the pride of Jordan is made waste.

⁴This is what the Lord my God has said: Take care of the flock of death;

⁵Whose owners put them to death and have no sense of sin; and those who get a price for them say, May the Lord be praised for I have much wealth: and the keepers of the flock have no pity for them.

⁶For I will have no more pity for the people of the land, says the Lord; but I will give up everyone into his neighbour's hand and into the hand of his king: and they will make the land waste, and I will not keep them safe from their hands.

⁷So I took care of the flock of death, for those who made profit out of the flock; and I took for myself two rods, naming one Beautiful, and the other Bands; and I took care of the flock.

⁸And in one month I put an end to the three keepers of the flock; for my soul was tired of them, and their souls were disgusted with me.

⁹And I said, I will not take care of you: If death comes to any, let death be its fate; if any is cut off, let it be cut off; and let the rest take one another's flesh for food.

¹⁰And I took my rod Beautiful, cutting it in two, so that the Lord's agreement, which he had made with all the peoples, might be broken.

¹¹And it was broken on that day: and the sheep-traders, who were watching me, were certain that it was the word of the Lord.

¹²And I said to them, If it seems good to you, give me my payment; and if not, do not give it. So they gave me my payment by weight, thirty shekels of silver.

¹³And the Lord said to me, Put it into the store-house, the price at which I was valued by them. And I took the thirty shekels of silver and put them into the store-house in the house of the Lord.

¹⁴Then I took my other rod, the one named Bands, cutting it in two, so that the relation of brothers between Judah and Israel might be broken.

¹⁵And the Lord said to me, Take again the instruments of a foolish keeper of sheep.

¹⁶For see, I will put a sheep-keeper over the land, who will have no care for that which is cut off, and will not go in search of the wanderers, or make well what is broken, and he will not give food to that which is ill, but he will take for his food the flesh of the fat, and let their feet be broken.

¹⁷A curse on the foolish keeper who goes away from the flock! the sword will be on his arm and on his right eye: his arm will become quite dry and his eye will be made completely dark.