Zechariah Chapter 1

Conversational Yahveh Covenant

¹ The Eighth Month, Second Year of Darius

A Message from Yahveh to the Prophet Zechariah Ben-Berechiah Ben-Iddo

A Call to Return to Yahveh

² “I^Ywas angry with your ancestors. ³ So tell the people, ‘Yahveh of hosts says, “Come back to me so I can come back to you. ⁴ Don’t be like your ancestors that former prophets told to come back from their sinful ways and deeds, but they didn’t pay any attention. ⁵ Where are those ancestors? Prophets don’t live forever, ⁶ but my message commanded through them did come to bear on your ancestors. As a result, they repented and said, ‘Yahveh of hosts has dealt with us the way he intended, according to our ways and deeds.’”’”

Zech 1:1-6

⁷ The Twenty-Fourth Day, Eleventh Month (Shebat), Second Year of Darius

A Message from Yahveh to Zechariah

A Man Among the Murtle Trees

⁸ During the night I saw a man on a chestnut horse among some myrtle trees in a ravine. Behind him were chestnut, sorrel, and white horses and their riders. ⁹ I said, “Sir, what do those horses mean?”

The angel said, “I’ll show you.”

¹⁰ The man on the horse among the myrtle trees said, “Yahveh has sent them to patrol the earth.”

¹¹ They answered the angel of Yahveh, who was standing among the myrtle trees, “We’ve patrolled the earth. It’s peaceful and quiet.”

¹² The angel asked, “Yahveh of Hosts, how long will you not have mercy on Jerusalem and the towns in Judah that you’ve been angry with these 70 years?”

¹³ Yahveh answered him with gracious, reassuring words.

         ¹⁴So the angel told me,

“Declare that Yahveh of Hosts says, ‘I’m jealous for Jerusalem and Zion, ¹⁵ but I’m angry with the nations that are at ease. While I was a little angry, they made the disaster worse. ¹⁶ So I’ll come back to Jerusalem with mercy. My Temple will be rebuilt there, and a measuring line will be stretched out over it for reconstructing it.’”

 ¹⁷ “Also say, ‘My towns will overflow with prosperity again. I^’ll comfort Zion again and choose Jerusalem once more.’”                                                                                          

Zech 1:7-17

Four Horns and Four Blacksmiths

¹⁸ Then I looked up and saw four horns. ¹⁹ I asked the angel what they represented.

“The horns of the nations that scattered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem.”

²⁰ Then Yahveh showed me four blacksmiths.

²¹ I asked what they were coming to do.

“The four horns scattered Judah and humbled it. But these blacksmiths have come to hammer down and destroy the nations that lifted up their horns to scatter the people of Judah.”

Zech 1:18-21