Old/New Testament

Words for everyone to read

5 Again, I looked and I saw a large paper. It was moving through the air. There were many words on the paper.

² The angel said to me, ‘What do you see?’ And I answered, ‘I see a paper that is flying through the air. It is 30 feet long and 15 feet wide.’

³ Then the angel said to me, ‘The words on the paper tell about bad events for the whole earth. This will be in future years. On one side of the paper, it says that a man must not rob anyone. If he does, people will send him away from his own country. On the other side of the paper, it says that a man must not speak false words. If he does, people will send him away from his own country. ⁴ The Lord Almighty says, “I will cause bad things to happen in the house of the man that robs anyone. I will cause bad things to happen in the house of the man that speaks false words. It is as if the words on the paper will destroy the houses of those bad people.” ’

The woman in the basket

⁵ Then the angel that talked to me came near to me. He said, ‘Look. And see the thing that has just appeared.’

⁶ I said, ‘What is it?’

He said, ‘It is a basket that people measure with.’ Then he said, ‘It is the sin of all the people in this country.’

⁷ He lifted the heavy metal lid and there was a woman. She was sitting in the basket!

⁸ The angel said, ‘This is sin.’ He pushed her into the basket again and he put the heavy metal lid on top of the basket.

⁹ Then I looked up and I saw two women. They flew towards me with strong wings. The wind carried them as the wind carries large birds. They lifted the basket between the earth and the sky.

¹⁰ Then I said to the angel that talked with me, ‘Where will these women take the basket?’

¹¹ The angel said to me, ‘They will take the basket to the country called Babylon. They will build a house for it there. When the house is ready, they will put the basket inside the house. They will put it where people can see it.’

Four chariots

6 Again I looked up and I saw four chariots! They came out from between two mountains and the mountains were mountains of shining metal! ² The first chariot had red horses and the second chariot had black horses. ³ The third chariot had white horses and the fourth chariot had grey horses. All the horses were strong. ⁴ Then I spoke to the angel that talked to me. I asked him, ‘What are these chariots, my lord?’

⁵ The angel answered me, ‘These are the four spirits of heaven. They have come from the Lord of the whole world. ⁶ The chariot with the black horses goes towards the north country. The chariot with the white horses goes after them. The chariot with the grey horses goes towards the south country.’

⁷ When the strong horses came out, they were in a hurry to leave. The angel said, ‘Go through all the earth.’ So the horses went through all the earth.

⁸ Then the Lord told me, ‘The chariot that goes to the north country has caused my Spirit to rest in the north country. I am now no longer angry about the north country.’

A crown for Joshua

⁹ The Lord spoke to me.

¹⁰ ‘Three men have arrived from Babylon,’ he said. ‘Their names are Heldai, Tobijah and Jedaiah. Take the gold that they have brought with them. On the same day, take the gold to the house of Josiah, the son of Zephaniah.

¹¹ Take the gold and other valuable metal and make a crown. Put it on the head of Joshua the most important priest. He is the son of Jehozadak. ¹² Say to Joshua, “The Lord Almighty says, ‘I have chosen a man. His name is the Branch. He will be a great man and he will build the house of the Lord.

¹³ It is he who will build the house of the Lord. He will sit on his special high seat and he will rule all the people. He will be a priest on the seat of a king. This one man will be priest and king.’ ” ¹⁴ They will put the crown in the house of the Lord. This is to remember Heldai, Tobijah, Jedaiah and Hen the son of Zephaniah. This is because they brought the gold from Babylon.

¹⁵ People will come a long way and they will help to build the house of the Lord. Then you will know that the Lord Almighty has sent me to you. All this will happen if you completely obey the Lord your God.’

God wants people to be fair and kind

7 The Lord spoke to Zechariah when Darius had been king for four years. It was the fourth day of the ninth month. The name of the month was Kislev. ² Then the people in Bethel sent Sharezer and Regem-Melech and their men to Jerusalem. They came to ask the Lord to help them. ³ They came to the house of the Lord Almighty to speak to the priests and to the prophets. They asked, ‘Should we cry and not eat our food in the fifth month? We have done this for many years.’^[a]

⁴ The Lord Almighty spoke to me. ⁵ He said, ‘Say this to all the people in this country and to the priests: “You lived in Babylon for many years. You ate no food and you were sad in the fifth month and in the seventh month. But you did not do this for me. ⁶ You ate and you drank. But you ate and you drank for yourselves. ⁷ These are the words that I, the Lord, spoke by my prophets in past years. At that time, the people in Jerusalem lived without trouble. Many rich people lived in Jerusalem. People in the Negev region in the south and in the low hills in the west also lived safely.” ’

⁸ The Lord spoke again to Zechariah. He said, ⁹ ‘The Lord Almighty has said, “Be sure that you are fair to all people. Be kind to each other. ¹⁰ Do not cheat widows or children who have no family. Do not cheat foreigners or poor people. Do not think secretly of ways to hurt each other.”

¹¹ But the people would not listen and they turned away. They put their hands over their ears, because they did not want to hear. ¹² They decided that they would not listen to God's rules or to the messages from the prophets. But the Lord Almighty had sent those messages by His Spirit. So I, the Lord Almighty, was very angry.

¹³ When I spoke to them, they did not listen. So when they prayed to me, I did not listen to them, says the Lord Almighty. ¹⁴ As a storm takes things away, I took my people away to strange countries. The country that they left became an empty country. Nobody lived in it. That is how they made the good country an empty country.’

The promises of God for Jerusalem

8 The Lord Almighty gave this message to Zechariah. ² ‘I have wanted to help Jerusalem because I love its people very much. My love causes me to be very angry with the enemies of Jerusalem,’ says the Lord Almighty.

³ ‘Jerusalem is the city that I have chosen. I will return there and I will live there. Then Jerusalem will be called the city that obeys God. And the mountain of the Lord Almighty will be called the mountain that God has chosen.’

⁴ The Lord Almighty says, ‘Old men and old women will sit in the streets of Jerusalem again. Each will have a stick in his hands because he is so old.

⁵ Many boys and girls will play in the streets of the city again.’

⁶ ‘This may seem impossible to the few people that remain,’ says the Lord Almighty. ‘But nothing is impossible to me,’ says the Lord Almighty.

⁷ ‘I will bring my people back from the east country and from the west country,’ says the Lord Almighty. ⁸ ‘I will bring them back to live in Jerusalem. They will be my people and I will be their God. I will do for them what I promised to do.’

⁹ The Lord Almighty says, ‘Be strong, you people who now hear these words from the mouths of the prophets. The prophets spoke the same words when you prepared the ground for the temple of the Lord Almighty. Now be strong and continue to build. ¹⁰ Before that time, there was not enough money to pay for work that men or animals did. No man was safe from the enemy because I made all men angry with each other.’

¹¹ ‘But now it is different. I will not be angry with the few people that have returned,’ says the Lord Almighty.

¹² ‘The seeds and the plants will grow well. The trees will give fruit. There will be water from the skies. I will bless the few people that will return. ¹³ In past years, people from other countries have said bad things against you, Judah and Israel. But now I will help you. You will bless many people. Do not be afraid. Be strong.’

¹⁴ The Lord Almighty says this: ‘When your parents and their parents made me angry, I decided to punish them.’ ‘I have also punished you,’ says the Lord Almighty. ¹⁵ ‘Do not be afraid. I have now decided to do good things to Jerusalem and to the people in Judah again. ¹⁶ These are the things that you should do. Speak true words to each other. Leaders, be fair to all people. ¹⁷ Do not think to do bad things against other people. Do not use my name to promise things and then not do those things. All these things make me very angry.’

¹⁸ Again Zechariah the prophet heard this message from the Lord Almighty. ¹⁹ ‘On special days in the year you eat no food. Those days are in the fourth, fifth, seventh and tenth months. But I want you to enjoy those days,’ says the Lord Almighty. ‘I want the people in Judah to be happy. So speak true words and live quiet lives.’

²⁰ ‘People that live in many countries will come to Jerusalem,’ says the Lord Almighty. ²¹ ‘The people from one city will go to the people in another city. They will say, “Come with us to worship the Lord Almighty. Come and ask the Lord to help us.” ²² People from many powerful nations will worship the Lord Almighty in Jerusalem. They will ask the Lord to help them.’

²³ ‘Then, ten men from foreign countries will hold the coat of one Jew,’ says the Lord Almighty. ‘They will say, “People have told us that the Lord is with you. So we want to go with you.” ’

The people in heaven praise God

19 After these things, I heard a sound like the voices of a great crowd of people in heaven. They were shouting,

³ Then the crowd of people in heaven shouted again,

⁴ The 24 leaders and the four beings that are alive then threw themselves down on the ground. They worshipped God, who was sitting on the throne. They said, ‘It is true! Praise the Lord God!’

⁵ Then a voice spoke from the throne. It said,

⁶ Then I heard a sound like the noise of a very big crowd that was shouting. The sound was like the noise of water that pours quickly along a river. It was like the noise of loud thunder. The crowd of people shouted,

⁸ God has given her linen clothes to wear that are bright and clean.’

These special linen clothes show the good things that God's holy people have done.^[b]

⁹ Then the angel said to me, ‘Write down this message: “There will be a special meal at the Lamb's wedding party. God has truly blessed those people that he has asked to come to that meal.” ’ The angel also said to me, ‘This is a true message from God.’

¹⁰ Then I bent down low at the angel's feet to worship him. But he said to me, ‘You must not do that! I am only a servant of God, the same as you are. I am a servant, like all believers who show clearly that they trust in Jesus. God is the one that you should worship! When God gave a message to his prophets, it was Jesus that they spoke about.’

The great king on a white horse

¹¹ I saw that heaven was now open. I saw a white horse there! The name of the man who was riding the horse was this: ‘A faithful, honest person’. He is always right when he judges people and when he goes to punish them in war. ¹² His eyes burn like bright flames of fire. Many crowns are on his head. He has a name that is written on him, but nobody knows that name except himself. ¹³ He wears a long shirt with a lot of blood on it. His name is: ‘The Word of God’.

¹⁴ Heaven's armies were following him. They were also riding on white horses. They were wearing linen clothes that were white and clean. ¹⁵ A sharp sword was coming out of his mouth.^[c] He will use this sword to attack the people of all the nations of the world. Then he will rule them with strong authority. He will punish them like someone who stamps on grapes in a winepress. That will show God's great anger against them. He is the Almighty God.^{[d] 16} The man who rides on the white horse has a name that is written on his shirt. It is also written high on his leg. His name is: ‘The King who rules over all other kings. The Lord who rules over all lords’.^[e]

¹⁷ Then I saw an angel who was standing in the sun. He shouted loudly to all the birds that were flying high in the sky, ‘Come here! Come together to eat the big meal that God has prepared. ¹⁸ Eat the meat from the dead bodies of God's enemies! Come and eat the meat of kings, the meat of army captains and the meat of powerful men. Eat the meat of dead horses and the soldiers who ride them. Eat the meat of all kinds of people: slaves and free people, important people and ordinary people.’

¹⁹ Then I saw the wild animal and the kings of the earth and their armies. They had come together to fight a war. They were ready to fight a battle against the man who rode on the white horse and his army. ²⁰ But the rider and his army caught the wild animal. They also caught the false prophet who had done miracles to help the wild animal. He used those miracles to deceive the people who had the wild animal's mark on them. Those people worshipped his image. Now the rider and his army threw the wild animal and the false prophet into the lake of fire. They were still alive when they threw them into the lake that burns with sulphur.

²¹ The rider of the white horse then killed all his other enemies. He killed them with the sword that came out of his mouth. So then all the birds ate the meat from the dead bodies until they were completely full.