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¹ In the eighth month, in the second year of Daryavesh, the word of the LORD came to Zekharyah the son of Berekhyah, the son of `Iddo, the prophet, saying, ² "The LORD was very displeased with your fathers. ³ Therefore tell 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 Don't you be like your fathers, to whom the former prophets proclaimed, saying: Thus says the LORD of hosts, 'Return now from your evil ways, and from your evil doings;' but they did not hear, nor listen to me, says the LORD. ⁵ Your fathers, where are they? And the prophets, do they live forever? ⁶ But my words and my decrees, which I commanded my servants the prophets, didn't they overtake your fathers? "Then they repented and said, 'Just as the LORD of Hosts determined to do to us, according to our ways, and according to our practices, so he has dealt with us.'"

⁷ On the twenty-fourth day of the eleventh month, which is the month Shevat, in the second year of Daryavesh, the word of the LORD came to Zekharyah the son of Berekhyah, the son of `Iddo, the prophet, saying, ⁸ "I had a vision in the night, and, behold, 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, "They are the ones the LORD has sent to go back and forth through the eretz." 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 eretz, and, behold, all the eretz is at rest and in shalom." ¹² Then the angel of the LORD replied, "O LORD of Hosts, how long will you not have mercy on Yerushalayim and on the cities of Yehudah, 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 Yerushalayim and for Tziyon with a great jealousy. ¹⁵ I am very angry with the nations that are at ease; for I was but a little displeased, but they added to the calamity." ¹⁶ Therefore thus says the LORD: "I have returned to Yerushalayim with mercy. My house shall be built in it," says the LORD of Hosts, "and a line shall be stretched forth over Yerushalayim."' ¹⁷ "Proclaim further, saying, 'Thus says the LORD of Hosts: "My cities will again overflow with prosperity, and the LORD will again comfort Tziyon, and will again choose Yerushalayim."'"

¹⁸ I lifted up my eyes, and saw, and, behold, four horns. ¹⁹ I asked the angel who talked with me, "What are these?" He answered me, "These are the horns which have scattered Yehudah, Yisra'el, and Yerushalayim." 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 Yehudah, 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 Yehudah to scatter it."