Zechariah 9-14

Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition

Judgment on Israel’s Enemies

9 An Oracle

The Coming Ruler of God’s People

Restoration of Judah and Israel

Two Kinds of Shepherds

⁴ Thus said the Lord my God: “Become shepherd of the flock doomed to slaughter. ⁵ Those who buy them slay them and go unpunished; and those who sell them say, ‘Blessed be the Lord, I have become rich’; and their own shepherds have no pity on them. ⁶ For I will no longer have pity on the inhabitants of this land, says the Lord. Lo, I will cause men to fall each into the hand of his shepherd, and each into the hand of his king; and they shall crush the earth, and I will deliver none from their hand.”

⁷ So I became the shepherd of the flock doomed to be slain for those who trafficked in the sheep. And I took two staffs; one I named Grace, the other I named Union. And I tended the sheep. ⁸ In one month I destroyed the three shepherds. But I became impatient with them, and they also detested me. ⁹ So I said, “I will not be your shepherd. What is to die, let it die; what is to be destroyed, let it be destroyed; and let those that are left devour the flesh of one another.” ¹⁰ And I took my staff Grace, and I broke it, annulling the covenant which I had made with all the peoples. ¹¹ So it was annulled on that day, and the traffickers in the sheep, who were watching me, knew that it was the word of the Lord. ¹² Then I said to them, “If it seems right to you, give me my wages; but if not, keep them.” And they weighed out as my wages thirty shekels of silver. ¹³ Then the Lord said to me, “Cast it into the treasury”^[g]—the lordly price at which I was paid off by them. So I took the thirty shekels of silver and cast them into the treasury^[h] in the house of the Lord. ¹⁴ Then I broke my second staff Union, annulling the brotherhood between Judah and Israel.

¹⁵ Then the Lord said to me, “Take once more the implements of a worthless shepherd. ¹⁶ For lo, I am raising up in the land a shepherd who does not care for the perishing, or seek the wandering,^[i] or heal the maimed, or nourish the sound, but devours the flesh of the fat ones, tearing off even their hoofs.

Jerusalem’s Victory

12 An Oracle

The word of the Lord concerning Israel: Thus says the Lord, who stretched out the heavens and founded the earth and formed the spirit of man within him: ² “Lo, I am about to make Jerusalem a cup of reeling to all the peoples round about; it will be against Judah also in the siege against Jerusalem. ³ On that day I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all the peoples; all who lift it shall grievously hurt themselves. And all the nations of the earth will come together against it. ⁴ On that day, says the Lord, I will strike every horse with panic, and its rider with madness. But upon the house of Judah I will open my eyes, when I strike every horse of the peoples with blindness. ⁵ Then the clans of Judah shall say to themselves, ‘The inhabitants of Jerusalem have strength through the Lord of hosts, their God.’

⁶ “On that day I will make the clans of Judah like a blazing pot in the midst of wood, like a flaming torch among sheaves; and they shall devour to the right and to the left all the peoples round about, while Jerusalem shall still be inhabited in its place, in Jerusalem.

⁷ “And the Lord will give victory to the tents of Judah first, that the glory of the house of David and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem may not be exalted over that of Judah. ⁸ On that day the Lord will put a shield about the inhabitants of Jerusalem so that the feeblest among them on that day shall be like David, and the house of David shall be like God, like the angel of the Lord, at their head. ⁹ And on that day I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.

Mourning for the Pierced One

¹⁰ “And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of compassion and supplication, so that, when they look on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a first-born. ¹¹ On that day the mourning in Jerusalem will be as great as the mourning for Ha′dad-rim′mon in the plain of Megid′do. ¹² The land shall mourn, each family by itself; the family of the house of David by itself, and their wives by themselves; the family of the house of Nathan by itself, and their wives by themselves; ¹³ the family of the house of Levi by itself, and their wives by themselves; the family of the Shim′e-ites by itself, and their wives by themselves; ¹⁴ and all the families that are left, each by itself, and their wives by themselves.

13 “On that day there shall be a fountain opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to cleanse them from sin and uncleanness.

Idolatry Cut Off

² “And on that day, says the Lord of hosts, I will cut off the names of the idols from the land, so that they shall be remembered no more; and also I will remove from the land the prophets and the unclean spirit. ³ And if any one again appears as a prophet, his father and mother who bore him will say to him, ‘You shall not live, for you speak lies in the name of the Lord’; and his father and mother who bore him shall pierce him through when he prophesies. ⁴ On that day every prophet will be ashamed of his vision when he prophesies; he will not put on a hairy mantle in order to deceive, ⁵ but he will say, ‘I am no prophet, I am a tiller of the soil; for the land has been my possession^[j] since my youth.’ ⁶ And if one asks him, ‘What are these wounds on your back?’ he will say, ‘The wounds I received in the house of my friends.’”

The Shepherd Struck, the Flock Scattered

Future Warfare and Final Victory

14 Behold, a day of the Lord is coming, when the spoil taken from you will be divided in the midst of you. ² For I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the city shall be taken and the houses plundered and the women ravished; half of the city shall go into exile, but the rest of the people shall not be cut off from the city. ³ Then the Lord will go forth and fight against those nations as when he fights on a day of battle. ⁴ On that day his feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives which lies before Jerusalem on the east; and the Mount of Olives shall be split in two from east to west by a very wide valley; so that one half of the Mount shall withdraw northward, and the other half southward. ⁵ And the valley of my mountains shall be stopped up, for the valley of the mountains shall touch the side of it; and you shall flee as you fled from the earthquake in the days of Uzzi′ah king of Judah. Then the Lord your^[k] God will come, and all the holy ones with him.^[l]

⁶ On that day there shall be neither cold nor frost.^{[m] 7} And there shall be continuous day (it is known to the Lord), not day and not night, for at evening time there shall be light.

⁸ On that day living waters shall flow out from Jerusalem, half of them to the eastern sea and half of them to the western sea; it shall continue in summer as in winter.

⁹ And the Lord will become king over all the earth; on that day the Lord will be one and his name one.

¹⁰ The whole land shall be turned into a plain from Geba to Rimmon south of Jerusalem. But Jerusalem shall remain aloft upon its site from the Gate of Benjamin to the place of the former gate, to the Corner Gate, and from the Tower of Hanan′el to the king’s wine presses. ¹¹ And it shall be inhabited, for there shall be no more curse;^[n] Jerusalem shall dwell in security.

¹² And this shall be the plague with which the Lord will smite all the peoples that wage war against Jerusalem: their flesh shall rot while they are still on their feet, their eyes shall rot in their sockets, and their tongues shall rot in their mouths. ¹³ And on that day a great panic from the Lord shall fall on them, so that each will lay hold on the hand of his fellow, and the hand of the one will be raised against the hand of the other; ¹⁴ even Judah will fight against Jerusalem. And the wealth of all the nations round about shall be collected, gold, silver, and garments in great abundance. ¹⁵ And a plague like this plague shall fall on the horses, the mules, the camels, the asses, and whatever beasts may be in those camps.

¹⁶ Then every one that survives of all the nations that have come against Jerusalem shall go up year after year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the feast of booths. ¹⁷ And if any of the families of the earth do not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, there will be no rain upon them. ¹⁸ And if the family of Egypt do not go up and present themselves, then upon them shall^[o] come the plague with which the Lord afflicts the nations that do not go up to keep the feast of booths. ¹⁹ This shall be the punishment to Egypt and the punishment to all the nations that do not go up to keep the feast of booths.

²⁰ And on that day there shall be inscribed on the bells of the horses, “Holy to the Lord.” And the pots in the house of the Lord shall be as the bowls before the altar; ²¹ and every pot in Jerusalem and Judah shall be sacred to the Lord of hosts, so that all who sacrifice may come and take of them and boil the flesh of the sacrifice in them. And there shall no longer be a trader in the house of the Lord of hosts on that day.