Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Two Olive Trees and the Capstone

4 Then the angel who had been speaking with me returned and woke me—like a man who is wakened from his sleep.

² He asked me, ‘What do you see?’

I replied, ‘Behold, I see a solid gold menorah with its bowl at the top of it, and its seven lamps on it with seven pipes for the lamps that are on the top of it. ³ Also two olive trees are by it, one on the right side of the bowl and the other on the left side of it.’^[a]

⁴ Then I responded by saying to the angel speaking with me, ‘What are these, my lord?’

⁵ The angel who spoke with me responded by asking me, ‘You do not know what these are?’

I replied, ‘No, my lord.’

⁶ Then he responded to me by saying, ‘This is the word of Adonai to Zerubbabel saying: “Not by might, nor by power, but by My Ruach!” says Adonai-Tzva’ot. ⁷ “What are you, great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you will become a plain. He will bring out the capstone with shouts of “Grace, grace” to it.’”

²¹ In that very hour, He was overjoyed in the Ruach ha-Kodesh and said, “I praise You, Father, Master of the universe, that You have hidden these things from the wise and discerning and revealed them to infants. Yes, Father, for this way was pleasing to You. ²² All things have been handed over to Me by My Father. No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him.”

²³ Then turning to the disciples, He said privately, “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see! ²⁴ For I tell you, many prophets and kings desired to see what you are seeing yet did not see, and to hear what you are hearing yet did not hear.”