Zechariah 1:8-21 ▼

8 |I had a vision in the night, and look, a man riding on a red horse, and he stood among the myrtle trees that were in a ravine; and behind him there were red, brown, and white horses.

9 Then I asked, 'My lord, what are these?'| The angel who talked with me said to me, |I will show you what these are.|

10 The man who stood among the myrtle trees answered and said to me, |They are the ones the LORD has sent to go back and forth through the earth.|

11 They reported to the angel of the LORD who stood among the myrtle trees, and said, |We have walked back and forth through the earth, and look, all the earth is at rest and in peace.|

12 Then the angel of the LORD replied, |O LORD of hosts, how long will you not have mercy on Jerusalem and on the cities of Judah, against which you have had indignation these seventy years?|

13 The LORD answered the angel who talked with me with kind and comforting words.

14 So the angel who talked with me said to me, |Proclaim, saying, 'Thus says the LORD of hosts: |I am jealous for Jerusalem and for Zion with a great jealousy.

15 I am very angry with the nations that are at ease; for I was but only a little angry, but they added to the calamity.|

16 Therefore thus says the LORD: |I have returned to Jerusalem with mercy. My house will be built in it,| says the LORD of hosts, |and a line shall be stretched forth over Jerusalem.|'

17 |Proclaim further, saying, 'Thus says the LORD of hosts: |My cities will again overflow with prosperity, and the LORD will again comfort Zion, and will again choose Jerusalem.|'|

18 I lifted up my eyes, and saw, and look, four horns.

19 I asked the angel who talked with me, |What are these?| He answered me, |These are the horns which have scattered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem.|

20 The LORD showed me four craftsmen.

21 Then I asked, |What are these coming to do?| He said, |These are the horns which scattered Judah, so that no man lifted up his head; but these have come to terrify them, to cast down the horns of the nations, which lifted up their horn against the land of Judah to scatter it.|