The Living Bible (293 page)

Zechariah
5

I looked up again and saw a scroll flying through the air.

    
²
 “What do you see?” he asked.

    
“A flying scroll!” I replied. “It appears to be about thirty feet long and fifteen feet wide!”

    
³
 “This scroll,” he told me, “represents the words of God’s curse going out over the entire land. It says that all who steal and lie have been judged and sentenced to death.”

    
⁴
 “I am sending this curse into the home of every thief and everyone who swears falsely by my name,” says the Lord Almighty. “And my curse shall remain upon his home and completely destroy it.”

    
⁵
 Then the angel left me for a while, but he returned and said, “Look up! Something is traveling through the sky!”

    
⁶
 “What is it?” I asked.

    
He replied, “It is a bushel basket filled with the sin prevailing everywhere throughout the land.”

    
⁷
 Suddenly the heavy lead cover on the basket was lifted off, and I could see a woman sitting inside the basket!

    
⁸
 He said, “She represents wickedness,” and he pushed her back into the basket and clamped down the heavy lid again.

    
⁹
 Then I saw two women flying toward us, with wings like those of a stork. And they took the bushel basket and flew off with it, high in the sky.

    
¹⁰
 “Where are they taking her?” I asked the angel.

    
¹¹
 He replied, “To Babylon
*
where they will build a temple for the basket, to worship it!”

Zechariah
6

Then I looked up again and saw four chariots coming from between what looked like two mountains made of brass.
²
 The first chariot was pulled by red horses, the second by black ones,
³
 the third by white horses and the fourth by dappled-grays.

    
⁴
 “And what are these, sir?” I asked the angel.

    
⁵
 He replied, “These are the four heavenly spirits who stand before the Lord of all the earth; they are going out to do his work.
⁶
 The chariot pulled by the black horses will go north, and the one pulled by white horses will follow it there,
*
while the dappled-grays will go south.”

    
⁷
 The red
*
horses were impatient to be off, to patrol back and forth across the earth, so the Lord said, “Go. Begin your patrol.” So they left at once.

    
⁸
 Then the Lord summoned me and said, “Those who went north have executed my judgment
*
and quieted my anger there.”

    
⁹
 In another message the Lord said:

    
^10-11
 “Heldai, Tobijah, and Jedaiah will bring gifts of silver and gold from the Jews exiled in Babylon. The same day they arrive, meet them at the home of Josiah (son of Zephaniah), where they will stay. Accept their gifts and make from them a crown from the silver and gold. Then put the crown on the head of Joshua (son of Josedech) the High Priest.
¹²
 Tell him that the Lord Almighty says, ‘You represent the Man who will come, whose name is “The Branch”—he will grow up from himself
*
—and will build the Temple of the Lord.
¹³
 To him belongs the royal title. He will rule both as King and as Priest, with perfect harmony between the two!’

    
¹⁴
 “Then put the crown in the Temple of the Lord, to honor those who gave it—Heldai, Tobijah, Jedaiah, and also Josiah.
¹⁵
 These three who have come from so far away represent many others who will someday come from distant lands to rebuild the Temple of the Lord. And when this happens, you will know my messages have been from God, the Lord Almighty. But none of this will happen unless you carefully obey the commandments of the Lord your God.”

Zechariah
7

Another message came to me from the Lord in late November of the fourth year of the reign of King Darius.

    
²
 The Jews of the city of Bethel had sent a group of men headed by Sharezer, the chief administrative officer of the king, and Regem-melech, to the Lord’s Temple at Jerusalem, to seek his blessing
³
 and to speak with the priests and prophets about whether they must continue their traditional custom of fasting and mourning during the month of August each year, as they had been doing for so long.

    
⁴
 This was the Lord’s reply:

    
⁵
 “When you return to Bethel, say to all your people and your priests, ‘During those seventy years of exile when you fasted and mourned in August and October, were you really in earnest about leaving your sins behind and coming back to me? No, not at all!
⁶
 And even now in your holy feasts to God, you don’t think of me, but only of the food and fellowship and fun.
⁷
 Long years ago, when Jerusalem was prosperous and her southern suburbs out along the plain were filled with people, the prophets warned them that this attitude would surely lead to ruin, as it has.’”

    
^8-9
 Then this message from the Lord came to Zechariah. “Tell them to be honest and fair—and not to take bribes—and to be merciful and kind to everyone.
¹⁰
 Tell them to stop oppressing widows and orphans, foreigners and poor people, and to stop plotting evil against each other.
¹¹
 Your fathers would not listen to this message. They turned stubbornly away and put their fingers in their ears to keep from hearing me.
¹²
 They hardened their hearts like flint, afraid to hear the words that God, the Lord Almighty, commanded them—the laws he had revealed to them by his Spirit through the early prophets. That is why such great wrath came down on them from God. 
¹³
 I called, but they refused to listen, so when they cried to me, I turned away.
¹⁴
 I scattered them as with a whirlwind among the far-off nations. Their land became desolate; no one even traveled through it; the Pleasant Land lay bare and blighted.”

Zechariah
8

Again the Lord’s message came to me:

    
²
 The Lord Almighty says, “I am greatly concerned—yes, furiously angry—because of all that Jerusalem’s enemies have done to her.
³
 Now I am going to return to my land, and I, myself, will live within Jerusalem. Then Jerusalem shall be called ‘The Faithful City,’ and ‘The Holy Mountain,’ and ‘The Mountain of the Lord Almighty.’”

    
⁴
 The Lord Almighty declares that Jerusalem will have peace and prosperity so long that there will once again be aged men and women hobbling through her streets on canes,
⁵
 and the streets will be filled with boys and girls at play.

    
⁶
 The Lord says, “This seems unbelievable to you—a remnant, small, discouraged as you are—but it is no great thing for me.
⁷
 You can be sure that I will rescue my people from east and west, wherever they are scattered.
⁸
 I will bring them home again to live safely in Jerusalem, and they will be my people, and I will be their God, just and true and yet forgiving them their sins!”
*

    
⁹
 The Lord Almighty says, “Get on with the job and finish it! You have been listening long enough! For since you began laying the foundation of the Temple, the prophets have been telling you about the blessings that await you when it’s finished.
¹⁰
 Before the work began there were no jobs, no wages, no security; if you left the city, there was no assurance you would ever return, for crime was rampant.

    
¹¹
 “But it is all so different now!” says the Lord Almighty.
¹²
 “For I am sowing peace and prosperity among you. Your crops will prosper; the grapevines will be weighted down with fruit; the ground will be fertile, with plenty of rain; all these blessings will be given to the people left in the land.
¹³
 ‘May you be as poor as Judah,’ the heathen used to say to those they cursed! But no longer! For now
Judah
is a word of blessing, not a curse. ‘May you be as prosperous and happy as Judah is,’ they’ll say. So don’t be afraid or discouraged! Get on with rebuilding the Temple!
^14-15
 If you do, I will certainly bless you. And don’t think that I might change my mind. I did what I said I would when your fathers angered me and I promised to punish them, and I won’t change this decision of mine to bless you.
¹⁶
 Here is your part: Tell the truth. Be fair. Live at peace with everyone.
¹⁷
 Don’t plot harm to others; don’t swear that something is true when it isn’t! How I hate all that sort of thing!” says the Lord.

    
¹⁸
 Here is another message that came to me from the Lord Almighty:

    
¹⁹
 “The traditional fasts and times of mourning you have kept in July, August, October, and January
*
are ended. They will be changed to joyous festivals if you love truth and peace!
^20-21
 People from around the world will come on pilgrimages and pour into Jerusalem from many foreign cities to attend these celebrations. People will write their friends in other cities and say, ‘Let’s go to Jerusalem to ask the Lord to bless us and be merciful to us. I’m going! Please come with me. Let’s go
now!’
²²
 Yes, many people, even strong nations, will come to the Lord Almighty in Jerusalem to ask for his blessing and help.
²³
 In those days ten men from ten different nations will clutch at the coat sleeves of one Jew and say, ‘Please be my friend, for I know that God is with you.’”