Zechariah 9-12

Contemporary English Version

Israel's Enemies Will Be Punished

9 ^(A)^(B) This is a message
    from the Lord:
His eyes are on everyone,
especially the tribes
    of Israel.^[a]
So he pronounces judgment
against the cities
    of Hadrach and Damascus.^[b]
²Judgment will also fall
on the nearby city
    of Hamath,
as well as on Tyre and Sidon,^[c]
    whose people are clever.
³Tyre has built a fortress
    and piled up silver and gold,
as though they were dust
    or mud from the streets.
⁴Now the Lord will punish Tyre
    with poverty;
he will sink its ships
    and send it up in flames.

⁵^(C) Both Ashkelon and Gaza
will tremble with fear;
    Ekron will lose all hope.
Gaza's king will be killed,
and Ashkelon emptied
    of its people.
⁶A mob of half-breeds
    will settle in Ashdod,^[d]
and the Lord himself
    will rob Philistia of pride.

⁷No longer will the Philistines
eat meat with blood in it
    or any unclean food.^[e]
They will become part
of the people of our God
    from the tribe of Judah.
And God will accept
the people of Ekron,
    as he did the Jebusites.^[f]

⁸God says, “I will stand guard
to protect my temple from those
who come to attack.
I know what's happening,
and no one will mistreat
my people ever again.”

The Lord Tells about the Coming King

⁹^(D) Everyone in Jerusalem,
    celebrate and shout!
Your king has won a victory,
    and he is coming to you.
He is humble
    and rides on a donkey;
he comes on the colt
    of a donkey.
¹⁰^(E) I, the Lord, will take away
war chariots and horses
    from Israel^[g] and Jerusalem.
Bows that were made for battle
    will be broken.
I will bring peace to nations,
and your king will rule
    from sea to sea.
His kingdom will reach
from the Euphrates River
    across the earth.

The Lord Promises To Rescue Captives

¹¹^(F) When I made a sacred agreement
with you, my people,
    we sealed it with blood.^[h]
Now some of you are captives
    in waterless pits,
but I will come to your rescue
¹²    and offer you hope.
Return to your fortress,
because today I will reward you
    with twice what you had.
¹³I will use Judah as my bow
    and Israel^[i] as my arrow.
I will take the people of Zion
as my sword
    and attack the Greeks.

The Lord Will Protect His People

¹⁴Like a cloud, the Lord God
    will appear over his people,
and his arrows will flash
    like lightning.
God will sound his trumpet
and attack in a whirlwind
    from the south.
¹⁵The Lord All-Powerful
    will protect his people,
and they will trample down
the sharpshooters
    and their slingshots.
They will drink and get rowdy;
they will be as full as a bowl
    at the time of sacrifice.

¹⁶The Lord God will save them
on that day,
    because they are his people,
and they will shine on his land
    like jewels in a crown.
¹⁷How lovely they will be.
Young people will grow there
    like grain in a field
    or grapes in a vineyard.

A Bright Future for Judah and Israel

10 I, the Lord, am the one
    who sends storm clouds
and showers of rain
    to make fields produce.
So when the crops need rain,
    you should pray to me.

²^(G) You can't believe idols
    and fortunetellers,
or depend on the hope
you receive from witchcraft
    and interpreters of dreams.
But you have tried all of these,
and now you are like sheep
    without a shepherd.

³I, the Lord All-Powerful,
    am fiercely angry
with you leaders,
    and I will punish you.
I care for my people,
    the nation of Judah,
and I will change
this flock of sheep
    into charging war horses.

⁴From this flock will come leaders
    who will be strong
like cornerstones and tent pegs
    and weapons of war.
⁵They will join in the fighting,
and together they will trample
    their enemies like mud.
They will fight,
because I, the Lord,
    will be on their side.
And they will crush
    the enemy cavalry.

⁶I will strengthen
the kingdoms of Judah
    and Israel.^[j]
And I will show mercy
because I am the Lord,
    their God.
I will answer their prayers
    and bring them home.
Then it will seem as though
    I had never rejected them.
⁷Israel^[k] will be like
a tribe of warriors
    celebrating with wine.
When their children see this,
they will also be happy
    because of me, the Lord.

⁸I will give a signal
for them to come together
    because I have rescued them.
And there will be as many
    as ever before.
⁹^(H) Although I scattered my people
in distant countries,
    they won't forget me.
Once their children are raised,^[l]
    they will return—
¹⁰I will bring them home
from Egypt and Assyria,
    then let them settle
as far as Gilead and Lebanon,
until the land overflows
    with them.
¹¹My people will go through
    an ocean of troubles,
but I will overcome the waves
and dry up the deepest part
    of the Nile.
Assyria's great pride
    will be put down,
and the power of Egypt
    will disappear.
¹²I'll strengthen my people
because of who I am,
    and they will follow me.
I, the Lord, have spoken!

Trouble for Israel's Enemies

11 Lebanon, open your gates!
Let the fire come in
    to destroy your cedar trees.
²Cry, you cypress trees!
The glorious cedars have fallen
    and are rotting.
Cry, you oak trees of Bashan!
The dense forest
    has been chopped down.
³Listen! Shepherds are crying.
Their glorious pastures
    have been ruined.
Listen! Lions are roaring.
The forests of the Jordan Valley
    are no more to be found.

Worthless Shepherds

⁴The Lord my God said to me:

Tend those sheep doomed for slaughter! ⁵The people who buy and butcher them go unpunished, while everyone who sells them says, “Praise the Lord! I'm rich.” Not even their shepherds have pity on them.

⁶Tend those sheep because I, the Lord, will no longer have pity on the people of this earth. I'll turn neighbor against neighbor and make them slaves of a king. They will bring disaster on the earth, and I'll do nothing to rescue any of them.

⁷So I became a shepherd of those sheep doomed to be slaughtered by the sheep dealers.^[m] And I gave names to the two sticks I used for tending the sheep: One of them was named “Mercy” and the other “Unity.” ⁸In less than a month, I became impatient with three shepherds who didn't like me, and I got rid of them. ⁹Then I said, “I refuse to be your shepherd. Let the sheep that are going to die, go on and die, and those that are going to be destroyed, go on and be destroyed. Then let the others eat one another alive.”

¹⁰On that same day, I broke the stick named “Mercy” to show that the Lord had canceled his agreement with all people. ¹¹The sheep dealers who saw me knew at once that this was a message from the Lord. ^12-13^(I) I told them, “Pay me my wages, if you think you should; otherwise, forget it.” So they handed me my wages, a measly 30 pieces of silver.

Then the Lord said, “Throw the money into the treasury.”^[n] So I threw the money into the treasury at the Lord's temple. ¹⁴Then I broke the stick named “Unity” and canceled the ties between Judah and Israel.

¹⁵Next, the Lord said to me, “Act like a shepherd again—this time a worthless shepherd. ¹⁶Once more I am going to let a worthless nobody rule the land—one who won't care for the strays or search for the young or heal the sick or feed the healthy. He will just dine on the fattest sheep, leaving nothing but a few bones.”

¹⁷You worthless shepherd,
deserting the sheep!
I hope a sword
will cripple your arm
and blind your right eye.

Victory for Jerusalem

12 This is a message from the Lord about Israel:

I am the Lord! I stretched out the heavens; I put the earth on its foundations and gave breath to humans. ²I have decided that Jerusalem will become a bowl of wine that makes the neighboring nations drunk. And when Jerusalem is attacked, Judah will also be attacked.^[o] ³But I will turn Jerusalem into a heavy stone that crushes anyone who tries to lift it.

When all nations on earth surround Jerusalem, ⁴I will blind every horse and make them panic, and every rider will be confused. But at the same time, I will watch over Judah. ⁵Then every clan in Judah will realize that I, the Lord All-Powerful, am their God, and that I am the source of their strength.

⁶At that time I will let the clans of Judah be like a ball of fire in a wood pile or a fiery torch in a hay stack. Then Judah will send the surrounding nations up in smoke. And once again the city of Jerusalem will be filled with people.

⁷But I will first give victory to Judah, so the kingdom of David and the city of Jerusalem in all of their glory won't be thought of more highly than Judah itself. ⁸I, the Lord God, will protect Jerusalem. Even the weakest person there will be as strong as David, and David's kingdom will rule as though my very own angel were its leader. ⁹I am determined to wipe out every nation that attacks Jerusalem.

Mourning for the One Pierced with a Spear

¹⁰^(J) I, the Lord, will make the descendants of David and the people of Jerusalem feel deep sorrow and pray when they see the one they pierced with a spear. They will mourn and weep for him, as parents weep over the death of their only child or their first-born. ¹¹On that day the people of Jerusalem will mourn as much as everyone did for Hadad Rimmon^[p] on the flatlands near Megiddo. ¹²Everyone of each family in the land will mourn, and the men will mourn separately from the women. This includes those from the family of David, and the families of Nathan, ¹³Levi, Shimei,^[q] ¹⁴and all other families as well.

Footnotes

9.1 His … Israel: One possible meaning for the difficult Hebrew text.
9.1 Hadrach and Damascus: Hadrach was north of both Damascus (the main city of Syria) and Hamath (verse 2).
9.2 Tyre and Sidon: Phoenician cities.
9.5,6 Ashkelon and Gaza … Ekron … Ashdod: Philistine cities.
9.7 eat … food: The Philistines will become part of Judah and no longer eat meat with blood in it (see Genesis 9.4) or any other forbidden foods (see Leviticus 11.1-23; Deuteronomy 14.3-21).
9.7 Jebusites: The original people of Canaan, who lived in Jerusalem before it was captured by David (see 2 Samuel 5.6-10) and were later accepted as part of Israel.
9.10 Israel: The Hebrew text has “Ephraim,” the leading tribe of the northern kingdom of Israel, which sometimes stands for the whole kingdom.
9.11 agreement … blood: The agreement at Mount Sinai (see Exodus 24.7,8).
9.13 Israel: Hebrew “Ephraim” (see the note at 9.10).
10.6 Israel: The Hebrew text has “family of Joseph,” the ancestor of Ephraim and Manasseh, the leading tribes of the northern kingdom (Israel).
10.7 Israel: Hebrew “Ephraim” (see the note at 9.10).
10.9 Once … raised: One possible meaning for the difficult Hebrew text.
11.7 by the sheep dealers: One ancient translation; Hebrew “especially the weak ones.”
11.12,13 Throw … treasury: Hebrew “Throw the money to the potter.”
12.2 Judah … attacked: One possible meaning for the difficult Hebrew text.
12.11 Hadad Rimmon: Not mentioned elsewhere in the Old Testament.
12.13 Shimei: A descendant of Gershon son of Levi (see Numbers 3.18).

Revelation 20

Contemporary English Version

The Thousand Years

20 I saw an angel come down from heaven, carrying the key to the deep pit and a big chain. ²^(A) He chained the dragon for 1,000 years. It is that old snake, who is also known as the devil and Satan. ³Then the angel threw the dragon into the pit. He locked and sealed it, so 1,000 years would go by before the dragon could fool the nations again. But after that, it would have to be set free for a little while.

⁴^(B) I saw thrones, and sitting on those thrones were the ones who had been given the right to judge. I also saw the souls of the people who had their heads cut off because they had told about Jesus and preached God's message. They were the same ones who had not worshiped the beast or the idol, and they had refused to let its mark be put on their foreheads or hands. They will come to life and rule with Christ for 1,000 years.

^5-6These people are the first to be raised to life, and they are especially blessed and holy. The second death^[a] has no power over them. They will be priests for God and Christ and will rule with them for 1,000 years.

No other dead people were raised to life until 1,000 years later.

Satan Is Defeated

⁷At the end of the 1,000 years, Satan will be set free. ⁸^(C) He will fool the countries of Gog and Magog, which are at the far ends of the earth, and their people will follow him into battle. They will have as many followers as there are grains of sand along the beach, ⁹and they will march all the way across the earth. They will surround the camp of God's people and the city God loves. But fire will come down from heaven and destroy the whole army. ¹⁰Then the devil who fooled them will be thrown into the lake of fire and burning sulfur. He will be there with the beast and the false prophet, and they will be in pain day and night forever and ever.

The Judgment at the Great White Throne

¹¹^(D) I saw a great white throne with someone sitting on it. Earth and heaven tried to run away, but there was no place for them to go. ¹²^(E) I also saw all the dead people standing in front of that throne. Every one of them was there, no matter who they had once been. Several books were opened, and then the book of life^[b] was opened. The dead were judged by what those books said they had done.

¹³The sea gave up the dead people who were in it, and death and its kingdom also gave up their dead. Then everyone was judged by what they had done. ¹⁴Afterwards, death and its kingdom were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death.^[c] ¹⁵Anyone whose name wasn't written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.