Zechariah 3:1-8:17

Revised Standard Version

Fourth Vision: Joshua and Satan

3 Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him. ² And the Lord said to Satan, “The Lord rebuke you, O Satan! The Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is not this a brand plucked from the fire?” ³ Now Joshua was standing before the angel, clothed with filthy garments. ⁴ And the angel said to those who were standing before him, “Remove the filthy garments from him.” And to him he said, “Behold, I have taken your iniquity away from you, and I will clothe you with rich apparel.” ⁵ And I said, “Let them put a clean turban on his head.” So they put a clean turban on his head and clothed him with garments; and the angel of the Lord was standing by.

⁶ And the angel of the Lord enjoined Joshua, ⁷ “Thus says the Lord of hosts: If you will walk in my ways and keep my charge, then you shall rule my house and have charge of my courts, and I will give you the right of access among those who are standing here. ⁸ Hear now, O Joshua the high priest, you and your friends who sit before you, for they are men of good omen: behold, I will bring my servant the Branch. ⁹ For behold, upon the stone which I have set before Joshua, upon a single stone with seven facets, I will engrave its inscription, says the Lord of hosts, and I will remove the guilt of this land in a single day. ¹⁰ In that day, says the Lord of hosts, every one of you will invite his neighbor under his vine and under his fig tree.”

Fifth Vision: The Lampstand and Olive Trees

4 And the angel who talked with me came again, and waked me, like a man that is wakened out of his sleep. ² And he said to me, “What do you see?” I said, “I see, and behold, a lampstand all of gold, with a bowl on the top of it, and seven lamps on it, with seven lips on each of the lamps which are on the top of it. ³ And there are two olive trees by it, one on the right of the bowl and the other on its left.” ⁴ And I said to the angel who talked with me, “What are these, my lord?” ⁵ Then the angel who talked with me answered me, “Do you not know what these are?” I said, “No, my lord.” ⁶ Then he said to me, “This is the word of the Lord to Zerub′babel: Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of hosts. ⁷ What are you, O great mountain? Before Zerub′babel you shall become a plain; and he shall bring forward the top stone amid shouts of ‘Grace, grace to it!’” ⁸ Moreover the word of the Lord came to me, saying, ⁹ “The hands of Zerub′babel have laid the foundation of this house; his hands shall also complete it. Then you will know that the Lord of hosts has sent me to you. ¹⁰ For whoever has despised the day of small things shall rejoice, and shall see the plummet in the hand of Zerub′babel.

“These seven are the eyes of the Lord, which range through the whole earth.” ¹¹ Then I said to him, “What are these two olive trees on the right and the left of the lampstand?” ¹² And a second time I said to him, “What are these two branches of the olive trees, which are beside the two golden pipes from which the oil^[a] is poured out?” ¹³ He said to me, “Do you not know what these are?” I said, “No, my lord.” ¹⁴ Then he said, “These are the two anointed who stand by the Lord of the whole earth.”

Sixth Vision: The Flying Scroll

5 Again I lifted my eyes and saw, and behold, a flying scroll! ² And he said to me, “What do you see?” I answered, “I see a flying scroll; its length is twenty cubits, and its breadth ten cubits.” ³ Then he said to me, “This is the curse that goes out over the face of the whole land; for every one who steals shall be cut off henceforth according to it, and every one who swears falsely shall be cut off henceforth according to it. ⁴ I will send it forth, says the Lord of hosts, and it shall enter the house of the thief, and the house of him who swears falsely by my name; and it shall abide in his house and consume it, both timber and stones.”

Seventh Vision: The Woman in a Basket

⁵ Then the angel who talked with me came forward and said to me, “Lift your eyes, and see what this is that goes forth.” ⁶ And I said, “What is it?” He said, “This is the ephah that goes forth.” And he said, “This is their iniquity^[b] in all the land.” ⁷ And behold, the leaden cover was lifted, and there was a woman sitting in the ephah! ⁸ And he said, “This is Wickedness.” And he thrust her back into the ephah, and thrust down the leaden weight upon its mouth. ⁹ Then I lifted my eyes and saw, and behold, two women coming forward! The wind was in their wings; they had wings like the wings of a stork, and they lifted up the ephah between earth and heaven. ¹⁰ Then I said to the angel who talked with me, “Where are they taking the ephah?” ¹¹ He said to me, “To the land of Shinar, to build a house for it; and when this is prepared, they will set the ephah down there on its base.”

Eighth Vision: Four Chariots

6 And again I lifted my eyes and saw, and behold, four chariots came out from between two mountains; and the mountains were mountains of bronze. ² The first chariot had red horses, the second black horses, ³ the third white horses, and the fourth chariot dappled gray^[c] horses. ⁴ Then I said to the angel who talked with me, “What are these, my lord?” ⁵ And the angel answered me, “These are going forth to the four winds of heaven, after presenting themselves before the Lord of all the earth. ⁶ The chariot with the black horses goes toward the north country, the white ones go toward the west country,^[d] and the dappled ones go toward the south country.” ⁷ When the steeds came out, they were impatient to get off and patrol the earth. And he said, “Go, patrol the earth.” So they patrolled the earth. ⁸ Then he cried to me, “Behold, those who go toward the north country have set my Spirit at rest in the north country.”

The Coronation of the Branch

⁹ And the word of the Lord came to me: ¹⁰ “Take from the exiles Heldai, Tobi′jah, and Jedai′ah, who have arrived from Babylon; and go the same day to the house of Josi′ah, the son of Zephani′ah. ¹¹ Take from them silver and gold, and make a crown,^[e] and set it upon the head of Joshua, the son of Jehoz′adak, the high priest; ¹² and say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts, “Behold, the man whose name is the Branch: for he shall grow up in his place, and he shall build the temple of the Lord. ¹³ It is he who shall build the temple of the Lord, and shall bear royal honor, and shall sit and rule upon his throne. And there shall be a priest by his throne, and peaceful understanding shall be between them both.”’ ¹⁴ And the crown^[f] shall be in the temple of the Lord as a reminder to Heldai,^[g] Tobi′jah, Jedai′ah, and Josi′ah^[h] the son of Zephani′ah.

¹⁵ “And those who are far off shall come and help to build the temple of the Lord; and you shall know that the Lord of hosts has sent me to you. And this shall come to pass, if you will diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God.”

Hypocritical Fasting Condemned

7 In the fourth year of King Darius, the word of the Lord came to Zechari′ah on the fourth day of the ninth month, which is Chislev. ² Now the people of Bethel had sent Share′zer and Reg′em-mel′ech and their men, to entreat the favor of the Lord, ³ and to ask the priests of the house of the Lord of hosts and the prophets, “Should I mourn and fast in the fifth month, as I have done for so many years?” ⁴ Then the word of the Lord of hosts came to me: ⁵ “Say to all the people of the land and the priests, When you fasted and mourned in the fifth month and in the seventh, for these seventy years, was it for me that you fasted? ⁶ And when you eat and when you drink, do you not eat for yourselves and drink for yourselves? ⁷ When Jerusalem was inhabited and in prosperity, with her cities round about her, and the South and the lowland were inhabited, were not these the words which the Lord proclaimed by the former prophets?”

Punishment for Rejecting God’s Demands

⁸ And the word of the Lord came to Zechari′ah, saying, ⁹ “Thus says the Lord of hosts, Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy each to his brother, ¹⁰ do not oppress the widow, the fatherless, the sojourner, or the poor; and let none of you devise evil against his brother in your heart.” ¹¹ But they refused to hearken, and turned a stubborn shoulder, and stopped their ears that they might not hear. ¹² They made their hearts like adamant lest they should hear the law and the words which the Lord of hosts had sent by his Spirit through the former prophets. Therefore great wrath came from the Lord of hosts. ¹³ “As I called, and they would not hear, so they called, and I would not hear,” says the Lord of hosts, ¹⁴ “and I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations which they had not known. Thus the land they left was desolate, so that no one went to and fro, and the pleasant land was made desolate.”

God’s Promises to Zion

8 And the word of the Lord of hosts came to me, saying, ² “Thus says the Lord of hosts: I am jealous for Zion with great jealousy, and I am jealous for her with great wrath. ³ Thus says the Lord: I will return to Zion, and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem, and Jerusalem shall be called the faithful city, and the mountain of the Lord of hosts, the holy mountain. ⁴ Thus says the Lord of hosts: Old men and old women shall again sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each with staff in hand for very age. ⁵ And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in its streets. ⁶ Thus says the Lord of hosts: If it is marvelous in the sight of the remnant of this people in these days, should it also be marvelous in my sight, says the Lord of hosts? ⁷ Thus says the Lord of hosts: Behold, I will save my people from the east country and from the west country; ⁸ and I will bring them to dwell in the midst of Jerusalem; and they shall be my people and I will be their God, in faithfulness and in righteousness.”

⁹ Thus says the Lord of hosts: “Let your hands be strong, you who in these days have been hearing these words from the mouth of the prophets, since the day that the foundation of the house of the Lord of hosts was laid, that the temple might be built. ¹⁰ For before those days there was no wage for man or any wage for beast, neither was there any safety from the foe for him who went out or came in; for I set every man against his fellow. ¹¹ But now I will not deal with the remnant of this people as in the former days, says the Lord of hosts. ¹² For there shall be a sowing of peace; the vine shall yield its fruit, and the ground shall give its increase, and the heavens shall give their dew; and I will cause the remnant of this people to possess all these things. ¹³ And as you have been a byword of cursing among the nations, O house of Judah and house of Israel, so will I save you and you shall be a blessing. Fear not, but let your hands be strong.”

¹⁴ For thus says the Lord of hosts: “As I purposed to do evil to you, when your fathers provoked me to wrath, and I did not relent, says the Lord of hosts, ¹⁵ so again have I purposed in these days to do good to Jerusalem and to the house of Judah; fear not. ¹⁶ These are the things that you shall do: Speak the truth to one another, render in your gates judgments that are true and make for peace, ¹⁷ do not devise evil in your hearts against one another, and love no false oath, for all these things I hate, says the Lord.”