Return to YHWH
Zechariah 1In the eighth month of the second year of Darius, the word of YHWH came to the prophet Zechariah the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo, saying, “YHWH was bursting with anger at y’all’s ancestors. Therefore you are to tell them, YHWH Almighty says: ‘Y’all must return to me,’ says YHWH Almighty, ‘and I will return to y’all,’ says YHWH Almighty. Y’all must not be like your* ancestors, to whom the former prophets proclaimed, saying: YHWH Almighty says, ‘Y’all must return now from your* evil ways evil deeds.’ But they didn’t hear or listen to me, declares YHWH. As for y’all’s ancestors, where are they? And the prophets, do they live forever? But my words and my decrees, which I commanded my servants the prophets, didn’t they overtake y’all’s ancestors?
“Then they repented and said, ‘Just as YHWH Almighty determined to do to us, according to our ways and according to our practices, so ʜᴇ has dealt with us.’”
Vision #1: A Horseman Under the Myrtle Trees
On the twenty-fourth day of the eleventh month, which is the month Shebat, in the second year of Darius, the word of YHWH came to the prophet Zechariah the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo, saying, “I had a vision in the night and saw a man riding on a red horse. He stood among the myrtle trees that were in a ravine, and behind him there were red, brown, and white horses. Then I asked, ‘My lord, what are these?’”
The angel who talked with me said to me, “I will show you what these are.”
The man who stood among the myrtle trees answered, “They are the ones YHWH has sent to go back and forth through the earth.”
They reported to the Angel of YHWH who stood among the myrtle trees, and said, “We have walked back and forth through the earth, and now all the earth is at rest and in peace.”
Then the Angel of YHWH replied, “O YHWH Almighty, how long will you not have mercy on Jerusalem and on the cities of Judah, against which you have had indignation these seventy years?”
YHWH answered the angel who talked with me with kind and comforting words. So the angel who talked with me said to me, “You must proclaim, saying, ‘YHWH Almighty says: “I am jealous for Jerusalem and for Zion with a great jealousy. I am bursting with anger at the nations that are at ease, for I was but a little displeased, but they furthered the evil.” Therefore YHWH says: “I have returned to Jerusalem with mercy. My house will be rebuilt in it,” says YHWH Almighty, “and a measuring line will be stretched out over Jerusalem.”’
“Again you are to proclaim, saying, ‘YHWH Almighty says: “My cities will again overflow with prosperity, and YHWH will again comfort Zion, and will again choose Jerusalem.”’”
Vision #2: Four Horns and Craftsmen
I lifted up my eyes and saw four horns. I asked the angel who talked with me, “What are these?”
He answered me, “These are the horns which have scattered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem.”
YHWH showed me four craftsmen. Then I asked, “What are these coming to do?”
He said, “These are the horns which scattered Judah, so that no man lifted up his head; but these have come to terrify them, to cast down the horns of the nations that lifted up their horn against the land of Judah to scatter it.”