Zechariah 1 — BBE
1Verse 1In 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,Verse 2The Lord has been very angry with your fathers:Verse 3And you are to say to them, These are the words of the Lord of armies: Come back to me, says the Lord of armies, and I will come back to you.Verse 4Be not like your fathers, to whom the voice of the earlier prophets came, saying, Be turned now from your evil ways and from your evil doings: but they did not give ear to me or take note, says the Lord.Verse 5Your fathers, where are they? and the prophets, do they go on living for ever?Verse 6But my words and my orders, which I gave to my servants the prophets, have they not overtaken your fathers? and turning back they said, As it was the purpose of the Lord of armies to do to us, in reward for our ways and our doings, so has he done.Verse 7On the twenty-fourth day of the eleventh month, 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,Verse 8I saw in the night a man on a red horse, between the mountains in the valley, and at his back were horses, red, black, white, and of mixed colours.Verse 9Then I said, O my lord, what are these? And the angel who was talking to me said to me, I will make clear to you what they are.Verse 10And the man who was between the mountains, answering me, said, These are those whom the Lord has sent to go up and down through the earth.Verse 11And the man who was between the mountains, answering, said to the angel of the Lord, We have gone up and down through the earth, and all the earth is quiet and at rest.Verse 12Then the angel of the Lord, answering, said, O Lord of armies, how long will it be before you have mercy on Jerusalem and on the towns of Judah against which your wrath has been burning for seventy years?Verse 13And the Lord gave an answer in good and comforting words to the angel who was talking to me.Verse 14And the angel who was talking to me said to me, Let your voice be loud and say, These are the words of the Lord of armies: I am greatly moved about the fate of Jerusalem and of Zion.Verse 15And I am very angry with the nations who are living untroubled: for when I was only a little angry, they made the evil worse.Verse 16So this is what the Lord has said: I have come back to Jerusalem with mercies; my house is to be put up in her, says the Lord of armies, and a line is to be stretched out over Jerusalem.Verse 17And again let your voice be loud and say, This is what the Lord of armies has said: My towns will again be overflowing with good things, and again the Lord will give comfort to Zion and take Jerusalem for himself.Verse 18And lifting up my eyes I saw four horns.Verse 19And I said to the angel who was talking to me, What are these? And he said to me, These are the horns which have sent Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem in flight.Verse 20And the Lord gave me a vision of four metal-workers.Verse 21Then I said, What have these come to do? And he said, These are the horns which sent Judah in flight, and kept him from lifting up his head: but these men have come to send fear on them and to put down the nations who are lifting up their horns against the land of Judah to send it in flight.