Zechariah 1

1. In the eighth month, in the second year of Darius, the Word of the LORD came to Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo the prophet, saying,

2. “The LORD has been very angry with your fathers.

3. Therefore you say to them, ‘Thus says the LORD of hosts, “Return to Me,” says the LORD of hosts, “and I will return to you,” says the LORD of hosts.

4. “Be not as your fathers, to whom the former prophets have proclaimed to them, saying, ‘Thus says the LORD of hosts, “Turn now from your evil ways and your evil doings.” ‘ But they did not hearken, nor attend to Me,” says the LORD.

5. “Your fathers, where are they? And the prophets, do they live forever?

6. But My words and My statutes which I commanded My servants the prophets, did they not overtake your fathers? And they returned and said, ‘As the LORD of hosts planned to do to us, according to our ways and according to our doings, so He has done with us.’ ”

7. On the twenty-fourth day of the eleventh month, it is the month Shebat, in the second year of Darius, the word of the LORD came to Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo the prophet, saying,

8. “I watched by night. And behold! A man riding on a red horse, and he stood among the myrtle trees in the ravine. And behind him were red, speckled and white horses.”

9. Then I said, “O my lord, what are these?” And the angel who talked with me said to me, “I will show you what these are.”

10. And the man who stood among the myrtle trees answered and said, “These are those whom the LORD has sent to walk to and fro through the earth.”

11. And they answered the angel of the LORD who stood among the myrtle trees, and said, “We have walked to and fro through the earth, and behold, all the earth sits still and is at peace.”

12. Then the angel of the LORD answered and said, “O LORD of hosts, how long will You not have mercy upon Jerusalem and upon the cities of Judah against which You have cursed these seventy years?”

13. And the LORD answered the angel who talked with me with good words and comfortable words.

14. So the angel who talked with me said to me, “Cry aloud, saying, ‘Thus says the LORD of hosts, “I am jealous for Jerusalem and for Zion with a great jealousy.

15. And with great anger I am angry at the heathen that are at ease—in that I was but a little angry, but they furthered the affliction.”

16. Therefore thus says the LORD, “I have returned to Jerusalem with mercies. My house shall be built in it,” says the LORD of hosts. “And a line shall be stretched over Jerusalem.” ‘

17. Cry aloud again, saying, ‘Thus says the LORD of hosts, “My cities shall yet overflow through prosperity, and the LORD shall yet comfort Zion, and shall yet choose Jerusalem.”

18. Then I lifted up my eyes and looked, and behold, four horns!

19. And I said to the angel who talked with me, “What are these?” And he answered me, “These are the horns that have scattered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem.”

20. And the LORD showed me four craftsmen.

21. And I said, “What are these coming to do?” And He spoke, saying, “These are the horns which have scattered Judah, so that no man lifted up his head. But these have come to terrify them, to throw down the horns of the nations who lifted up their horns over the land of Judah to scatter it.”