Zechariah 10:3-13:9

English Standard Version

The Flock Doomed to Slaughter

⁴ Thus said the Lord my God: ^(AH)“Become shepherd of the flock doomed to slaughter. ^5 (AI)Those who buy them slaughter them and go unpunished, and those who sell them say, ‘Blessed be the Lord, ^(AJ)I have become rich,’ and their own shepherds have no pity on them. ⁶ For ^(AK)I will no longer have pity on the inhabitants of this land, declares the Lord. Behold, I will cause each of them to fall into the hand of his neighbor, and each into the hand of his king, and they shall crush the land, and I will deliver none from their hand.”

^7 (AL)So I became the shepherd of the flock doomed to be slaughtered by the sheep traders. And I took two staffs, one I named ^(AM)Favor, the other I named ^(AN)Union. ^(AO)And I tended the sheep. ⁸ In one month ^(AP)I destroyed the three shepherds. But I became impatient with them, and they also detested me. ⁹ So I said, “I will not be your shepherd. ^(AQ)What is to die, let it die. What is to be destroyed, let it be destroyed. And let those who are left devour the flesh of one another.” ¹⁰ And I took ^(AR)my staff Favor, and I broke it, annulling the covenant that I had made with all the peoples. ¹¹ So it was annulled on that day, and the sheep traders, who were watching me, knew that it was the word of the Lord. ¹² Then I said to them, “If it seems good to you, give me my wages; but if not, keep them.” And they weighed out as my wages ^(AS)thirty pieces of silver. ¹³ Then the Lord said to me, “Throw it to the potter”—^(AT)the lordly price at which I was priced by them. So I took the ^(AU)thirty pieces of silver and threw them into the house of the Lord, to the potter. ¹⁴ Then I broke ^(AV)my second staff Union, annulling the brotherhood between Judah and Israel.

¹⁵ Then the Lord said to me, “Take once more the equipment of ^(AW)a foolish shepherd. ¹⁶ For behold, I am raising up in the land a shepherd ^(AX)who does not care for those being destroyed, or seek the young or heal the maimed or nourish the healthy, but ^(AY)devours the flesh of the fat ones, tearing off even their hoofs.

The Lord Will Give Salvation

12 ^(BC)The oracle of the word of the Lord concerning Israel: Thus declares the Lord, ^(BD)who stretched out the heavens and ^(BE)founded the earth and ^(BF)formed the spirit of man within him: ² “Behold, I am about to make Jerusalem ^(BG)a cup of staggering to ^(BH)all the surrounding peoples. The siege of Jerusalem ^(BI)will also be against Judah. ^3 (BJ)On that day I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all the peoples. ^(BK)All who lift it will surely hurt themselves. And ^(BL)all the nations of the earth will gather against it. ^4 (BM)On that day, declares the Lord, ^(BN)I will strike every horse ^(BO)with panic, and its rider ^(BP)with madness. But for the sake of the house of Judah I will keep my eyes open, when I strike every horse of the peoples ^(BQ)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.’

^6 (BR)“On that day I will make the clans of Judah ^(BS)like a blazing pot in the midst of wood, like a flaming torch among sheaves. And ^(BT)they shall devour to the right and to the left all the surrounding peoples, while ^(BU)Jerusalem shall again be inhabited in its place, in Jerusalem.

⁷ “And the Lord will give salvation to the tents of Judah first, that the glory of the house of David and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem may not surpass that of Judah. ^8 (BV)On that day ^(BW)the Lord will protect the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that ^(BX)the feeblest among them on that day shall be like David, and the house of David shall be like God, ^(BY)like the angel of the Lord, going before them. ^9 (BZ)And on that day ^(CA)I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.

Him Whom They Have Pierced

¹⁰ “And ^(CB)I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and ^(CC)pleas for mercy, so that, ^(CD)when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced, ^(CE)they shall mourn for him, ^(CF)as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn. ^11 (CG)On that day ^(CH)the mourning in Jerusalem will be as great ^(CI)as the mourning for Hadad-rimmon in the plain of Megiddo. ¹² The land shall mourn, ^(CJ)each family^[b] by itself: the family of the house of David by itself, and their wives by themselves; the family of the house of ^(CK)Nathan by itself, and their wives by themselves; ¹³ the family of the house of Levi by itself, and their wives by themselves; the family of ^(CL)the Shimeites by itself, and their wives by themselves; ¹⁴ and all the families that are left, each by itself, and their wives by themselves.

13 ^(CM)“On that day there shall be ^(CN)a fountain opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and uncleanness.

Idolatry Cut Off

² “And ^(CO)on that day, declares the Lord of hosts, ^(CP)I will cut off the names of the idols from the land, so that ^(CQ)they shall be remembered no more. And also ^(CR)I will remove from the land the prophets and the spirit of uncleanness. ³ And if anyone again prophesies, his father and mother who bore him will say to him, ^(CS)‘You shall not live, for you speak lies in the name of the Lord.’ And his father and mother who bore him shall pierce him through when he prophesies.

⁴ “On that day ^(CT)every prophet will be ashamed of his vision when he prophesies. He will not put on a hairy cloak in order to deceive, ⁵ but he will say, ^(CU)‘I am no prophet, I am a worker of the soil, for a man sold me in my youth.’^{[c] 6} And if one asks him, ‘What are these wounds on your back?’^[d] he will say, ‘The wounds I received in the house of my friends.’

The Shepherd Struck