Zechariah 10-12
New Century Version
The Lord’s Promises
10 Ask the Lord for rain during the springtime rains.
The Lord is the one who makes the clouds.
He sends the showers
and gives everyone green fields.
2 Idols tell lies;
fortune-tellers see false visions
and tell about false dreams.
The comfort they give is worth nothing.
So the people are like lost sheep.
They are abused, because there is no shepherd.
3 The Lord says, “I am angry at my shepherds,
and I will punish the leaders.
I, the Lord All-Powerful, care
for my flock, the people of Judah.
I will make them like my proud war horses.
4 From Judah will come the cornerstone,
and the tent peg,
the battle bow,
and every ruler.
5 Together they will be like soldiers
marching to battle through muddy streets.
The Lord is with them,
so they will fight and defeat the horsemen.
6 “I will strengthen the people of Judah
and save the people of Joseph.
I will bring them back,
because I care about them.
It will be as though
I had never left them,
because I am the Lord their God,
and I will answer them.
7 The people of Ephraim will be strong like soldiers;
they will be glad as when they have drunk wine.
Their children will see it and rejoice;
they will be happy in the Lord.
8 I will call my people
and gather them together.
I will save them,
and they will grow in number as they grew in number before.
9 I have scattered them among the nations,
but in those faraway places, they will remember me.
They and their children will live and return.
10 I will bring them back from the land of Egypt
and gather them from Assyria.
I will bring them to Gilead and Lebanon
until there isn’t enough room for them all.
11 They will come through the sea of trouble.
The waves of the sea will be calm,
and the Nile River will dry up.
I will defeat Assyria’s pride
and destroy Egypt’s power over other countries.
12 I will make my people strong,
and they will live as I say,” says the Lord.
11 Lebanon, open your gates
so fire may burn your cedar trees.[a]
2 Cry, pine trees, because the cedar has fallen,
because the tall trees are ruined.
Cry, oaks in Bashan,
because the mighty forest has been cut down.
3 Listen to the shepherds crying
because their rich pastures are destroyed.
Listen to the lions roaring
because the lovely land of the Jordan River is ruined.
The Two Shepherds
4 This is what the Lord my God says: “Feed the flock that are about to be killed. 5 Their buyers kill them and are not punished. Those who sell them say, ‘Praise the Lord, I am rich.’ Even the shepherds don’t feel sorry for their sheep. 6 I don’t feel sorry anymore for the people of this country,” says the Lord. “I will let everyone be under the power of his neighbor and king. They will bring trouble to the country, and I will not save anyone from them.”
7 So I fed the flock about to be killed, particularly the weakest ones. Then I took two sticks; I called one Pleasant and the other Union, and I fed the flock. 8 In one month I got rid of three shepherds. The flock did not pay attention to me, and I got impatient with them. 9 I said, “I will no longer take care of you like a shepherd. Let those that are dying die, and let those that are to be destroyed be destroyed. Let those that are left eat each other.”
10 Then I broke the stick named Pleasant to break the agreement God made with all the nations. 11 That day it was broken. The weak ones in the flock who were watching me knew this message was from the Lord.
12 Then I said, “If you want to pay me, pay me. If not, then don’t.” So they paid me thirty pieces of silver.
13 The Lord said to me, “Throw the money to the potter.” That is how little they thought I was worth.[b] So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them to the potter in the Temple of the Lord.
14 Then I broke the second stick, named Union, to break the brotherhood between Judah and Israel.
15 Then the Lord said to me, “Get the things used by a foolish shepherd again, 16 because I am going to get a new shepherd for the country. He will not care for the dying sheep, or look for the young ones, or heal the injured ones, or feed the healthy. But he will eat the best sheep and tear off their hoofs.
17 “How terrible it will be for the useless shepherd
who abandoned the flock.
A sword will strike his arm and his right eye.
His arm will lose all its strength,
and his right eye will go blind.”
Jerusalem Will Be Saved
12 This message is the word of the Lord to Israel. This is what the Lord says, who stretched out the skies, and laid the foundations of the earth, and put the human spirit within: 2 “I will make Jerusalem like a cup of poison to the nations around her. They will come and attack Jerusalem and Judah. 3 One day all the nations on earth will come together to attack Jerusalem, but I will make it like a heavy rock; anyone who tries to move it will get hurt. 4 At that time I will confuse every horse and cause its rider to go crazy,” says the Lord. “I will watch over Judah, but I will blind all the horses of the enemies. 5 Then the leaders of Judah will say to themselves, ‘The people of Jerusalem are strong, because the Lord All-Powerful is their God.’
6 “At that time I will make the leaders of Judah like a fire burning a stack of wood or like a fire burning straw. They will destroy all the people around them left and right. But the people of Jerusalem will remain safe.
7 “The Lord will save the homes of Judah first so that the honor given to David’s family and to the people of Jerusalem won’t be greater than the honor given to Judah. 8 At that time the Lord will protect the people in Jerusalem. Then even the weakest of them will be strong like David. And the family of David will be like God, like an angel of the Lord in front of them. 9 At that time I will go to destroy all the nations that attack Jerusalem.
Crying for the One They Stabbed
10 “I will pour out on David’s family and the people in Jerusalem a spirit of kindness and mercy. They will look at me, the one they have stabbed, and they will cry like someone crying over the death of an only child. They will be as sad as someone who has lost a firstborn son. 11 At that time there will be much crying in Jerusalem, like the crying for Hadad Rimmon in the plain of Megiddo. 12 The land will cry, each family by itself: the family of David by itself and their wives by themselves, the family of Nathan by itself and their wives by themselves, 13 the family of Levi by itself and their wives by themselves, the family of Shimei by itself and their wives by themselves, 14 and all the rest of the families by themselves and their wives by themselves.
The Holy Bible, New Century Version®. Copyright © 2005 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.
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