1In the eighth month, in the second year of Darius, the word of the LORD came to Zechariah the prophet, the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo. He said:
2"The LORD has been very angry with your fathers."
3So say to them, 'This is what the LORD of hosts says: Turn back to me, says the LORD of hosts, and I will turn back to you, says the LORD of hosts.'
4Do not be like your fathers. The prophets who came before called out to them, 'This is what the LORD of hosts says: Turn now from your evil ways and your evil deeds.' But they did not hear, and they did not listen to me, says the LORD.
5Your fathers, where are they? And the prophets, do they live for ever?
6"But my words and my laws, which I commanded my servants the prophets, did they not catch up with your fathers? So they turned back and said, 'The LORD of hosts planned to deal with us according to our ways and our deeds, and that is what he has done to us.'"
7On the twenty-fourth day of the eleventh month, which is the month Sebat, in the second year of Darius, the word of the LORD came to Zechariah the prophet, the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo. He said:
8"I saw in the night, and look, a man was riding on a red horse. He stood among the myrtle trees in the low ground, and behind him were red horses, speckled horses, and white ones."
9Then I said, 'My lord, what are these?' And the angel who talked with me said to me, 'I will show you what these are.'
10And the man who stood among the myrtle trees answered, 'These are the ones the LORD has sent to go up and down through the earth.'
11And they answered the angel of the LORD who stood among the myrtle trees, and said, 'We have gone up and down through the earth, and look, all the earth sits still and is at rest.'
12Then the angel of the LORD said, 'LORD of hosts, how long will you have no mercy on Jerusalem and on the cities of Judah? You have been angry with them these seventy years.'
13And the LORD answered the angel who talked with me with good words, comforting words.
14So the angel who spoke with me said to me, 'Call out and say: This is what the LORD of hosts says: I am jealous for Jerusalem and for Zion with a great jealousy.
15And I am very angry with the nations that are at ease. For I was only a little angry, but they made the suffering worse.
16So this is what the LORD says: I have returned to Jerusalem with mercies. My house shall be built in it, says the LORD of hosts, and a measuring line shall be stretched out over Jerusalem.
17Call out again and say: This is what the LORD of hosts says: My cities shall yet spread out with prosperity. The LORD shall yet comfort Zion, and shall yet choose Jerusalem.'
18Then I looked up, and I saw, and there were four horns.
19And 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.'
20And the LORD showed me four carpenters.
21"Then I said, 'What have these come to do?' And he spoke and said, 'These are the horns that scattered Judah, so that no man lifted up his head. But these carpenters have come to frighten them, to throw down the horns of the nations, which lifted up their horn over the land of Judah to scatter it.'"