Dual PanelThe Lord Wants His People to Return
1Zechariah son of Berekiah received a message from the LORD. This was in the eighth month of the second year that Darius was king in Persia. (Zechariah was the son of Berekiah, who was the son of Iddo the prophet.) This is that message:
2The LORD became very angry with your ancestors.
3So you must tell the people what the LORD All-Powerful says, “Come back to me, says the LORD All-Powerful, and I will come back to you.” This is what the LORD All-Powerful said.
4“Don’t be like your ancestors. In the past the prophets spoke to them and said, ‘The LORD All-Powerful wants you to change your evil way of living. Stop doing evil things!’ But your ancestors did not listen to me.” This is what the LORD said.
5“Your ancestors are gone, and those prophets did not live forever.
6The prophets were my servants. I used them to tell your ancestors about my laws and teachings. Your ancestors finally learned their lesson and said, ‘The LORD All-Powerful did what he said he would do. He punished us for the way we lived and for all the evil things we did.’ So they came back to God.”
The Four Horses
7On the 24th day of the eleventh month (Shebat) of the second year that Darius was king of Persia, Zechariah received another message from the LORD. (This was Zechariah son of Berekiah, son of Iddo.) This is the message:
8At night I saw a man riding a red horse. He was standing among some myrtle bushes in the valley. Behind him were riders on red, brown, and white horses.
9I said, “Sir, what do these mean?” Then the angel speaking to me said, “I will show you what they mean.”
10Then the man among the myrtle bushes said, “These are the ones the LORD sent to go here and there on earth.”
11Then the riders on the horses spoke to the angel of the LORD standing among the myrtle bushes. They said, “We have gone all overgen the earth, and everything is calm and quiet.”
12Then the angel of the LORD said, “LORD All-Powerful, how long before you comfort Jerusalem and the cities of Judah? You have shown your anger at these cities for 70 years now.”
13Then the LORD answered the angel who was talking with me. He spoke good, comforting words.
14Then the angel told me to tell the people this: The Lord All-Powerful says: “I have a strong love for Jerusalem and Zion.
15And I am very angry at the nations that feel so safe. I was only a little angry, and I used them to punish my people. But they caused too much damage.”
16So the LORD says, “I will come back to Jerusalem and comfort her.” The LORD All-Powerful says, “Jerusalem will be rebuilt, and my house will be built there.”
17The angel also said, “The LORD All-Powerful says, ‘My towns will be rich again. I will comfort Zion. I will again choose Jerusalem to be my special city.’”
The Four Horns and Four Workers
18Then I looked up and I saw four horns.
19So I asked the angel who was talking with me, “What do these horns mean?” He said, “These are the horns that forced the people of Israel, Judah, and Jerusalem to go to foreign countries.”
20The LORD showed me four workers.
21I asked him, “What are these four workers coming to do?” He said, “The horns represent the nations that attacked the people of Judah and forced them to go to foreign countries. The horns ‘threw’ the people of Judah to the foreign countries. The horns didn’t show mercy to anyone. But these four workers have come to frighten the horns and throw them away.”