Call for Obedience.1In the second year of Darius,* in the eighth month, the word of theLord came to the prophet Zechariah, son of Berechiah, son of Iddo:2TheLord was very angry with your ancestors.*a3Say to them: Thus says theLord of hosts, Return to me—oracle of theLord* of hosts—and I will return to you, says theLord of hosts.4Do not be like your ancestors to whom the earlier prophets* proclaimed: Thus says theLord of hosts: Turn from your evil ways and from your wicked deeds.b But they did not listen or pay attention to mec—oracle of theLord.—5Your ancestors, where are they? And the prophets, can they live forever?6But my words and my statutes, with which I charged my servants the prophets, did these not overtake your ancestors?d Then they repented* and admitted: “Just as theLord of hosts intended to treat us according to our ways and deeds, so theLord has done.”
First Vision: Horses Patrolling the Earth.e7In the second year of Darius, on the twenty-fourth day of Shebat, the eleventh month,* the word of theLord came to the prophet Zechariah, son of Berechiah, son of Iddo:
8* I looked out in the night,* and there was a man mounted on a red horse standing in the shadows among myrtle trees; and behind him were red, sorrel, and white horses.9I asked, “What are these, my lord?”* Then the angel who spoke with me answered, “I will show you what these are.”10Then the man who was standing among the myrtle trees spoke up and said, “These are the ones whom theLord has sent to patrol the earth.”f11And they answered the angel of theLord,* who was standing among the myrtle trees: “We have been patrolling the earth, and now the whole earth rests quietly.”12Then the angel of theLord replied, “Lord of hosts, how long will you be without mercy for Jerusalem and the cities of Judah that have felt your anger these seventy years?”*g13To the angel who spoke with me, theLord replied favorably, with comforting words.
Oracular Response.14The angel who spoke with me then said to me, Proclaim: Thus says theLord of hosts:
I am jealous for Jerusalem
and for Zion* intensely jealous.h
15I am consumed with anger
toward the complacent nations;*
When I was only a little angry,
they compounded the disaster.i
16Therefore, thus says theLord:
I return to Jerusalem in mercy;j
my house* will be rebuilt therek—oracle of theLord of hosts—
and a measuring line will be stretched over Jerusalem.
17Proclaim further: Thus says theLord of hosts:
My cities will again overflow with prosperity;
theLord will again comfort Zion,
and will again choose Jerusalem.l
