Zechariah 1
1IN the eighth month of the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came to Zacharias the Barachite, the son of Addo, the prophet, saying:
2The Lord was very angry with your fathers,
3therefore thou shalt say to them, Thus saith the Lord Almighty, Turn to Me, saith the Lord of Hosts and I will turn to you saith the Lord of Hosts.
4And be not like your fathers to whom the former prophets called, saying, Thus saith the Lord Almighty: Turn from your evil ways and from your wicked practices. But they hearkened not, nor gave attention to listen to Me, saith the Lord.
5As for your fathers, where are they? And the prophets, will they live forever?
6But receive ye My words and My statutes—all that I, by My spirit, give in charge to My servants the prophets, who reached your fathers when they addressed them and said: As the Lord Almighty determined to deal with us according to our ways, and according to our practices, so hath He dealt with us.
7On the twenty-fourth of the eleventh month, which is the month Sabat, in the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came to Zacharias, the Barachite, the son of Addo, the prophet:
8I had been viewing the night, and lo! [there appeared] a man mounted on a red horse, and he stood between the shady mountains, and behind him were horses, red and ash-coloured, and dappled and white.
9And I said, Lord what are these? And the angel who was talking with me said to me, I will shew thee what these are.
10Then the man who stood between the mountains addressing me said, These are they whom the Lord sent to go round the earth.
11Then they addressed the angel of the Lord who stood between the mountains, and said: We have gone round all the earth, and lo, all the land is inhabited, and quiet.
12And the angel of the Lord answered and said, O Lord Almighty, how long wilt Thou not have mercy on Jerusalem, and the cities of Juda, which Thou hast overlooked those seventy years?
13And the Lord Almighty answered the angel, who had been talking with me, with good determinations, and comfortable words.
14Whereupon the angel who had been talking with me said to me—he cried with a loud voice, saying: Thus saith the Lord Almighty: I have been jealous of Jerusalem and Sion with great jealousy;
15and with great wrath [also] I am angry with the nations who were set on [her]. Because I was indeed a little displeased [with Jerusalem], but they [the nations] were bent on mischief.
16Therefore thus saith the Lord: I will turn to Jerusalem with compassion, and My house shall be rebuilded in it, saith the Lord Almighty, and a line shall be stretched over Jerusalem.
17And again the angel who had been talking with me said to me—again he cried with a loud voice, and said: Thus saith the Lord Almighty: Again shall cities abound with prosperity; and again the Lord will compassionate Sion and make choice of Jerusalem.
18Then I lifted up mine eyes and looked, and lo, four horns!
19And I said to the angel who was talking with me, [My] lord, what are these? And he said to me, These are the horns which have scattered Juda and Israel and Jerusalem.
20Then the Lord shewed me four carpenters.
21And I said, What are these going to do? And He said, Those four horns which scattered Juda and Israel are broken, and not one of them hath raised a head; now these are come to sharpen for themselves those four horns; namely, the nations which lifted up a horn against the land of the Lord to scatter it.