Zechariah 11-14

Easy-to-Read Version

God Will Punish the Other Nations

⁴ The Lord my God says, “Care for the sheep that have been raised to be killed. ⁵ Buyers kill their sheep and are not punished. Those who sell the sheep say, ‘Praise the Lord, I am rich!’ The shepherds don’t feel sorry for their sheep. ⁶ And I don’t feel sorry for the people who live in this country.” This is what the Lord said: “Look, I will let everyone be under the control of their neighbor and king. I will let them destroy the country—I will not stop them!”

⁷ So I took care of the sheep that had been raised to be killed—those poor sheep. I found two sticks. I called one stick Favor, and I called the other stick Union. Then I began caring for the sheep. ⁸ I fired the three shepherds all in one month. I got angry at the sheep, and they began to hate me. ⁹ Then I said, “I quit! I will not take care of you! I will let those who want to die, die. I will let those who want to be destroyed, be destroyed, and those who are left will destroy each other.” ¹⁰ Then I took the stick named Favor, and I broke it. I did this to show that God’s agreement with his people was broken. ¹¹ So that day the agreement was finished, and those poor sheep watching me knew that this message was from the Lord.

¹² Then I said, “If you want to pay me, pay me. If not, don’t!” So they paid me 30 pieces of silver. ¹³ Then the Lord told me, “So that’s how much they think I’m worth. Throw that large amount of money^[b] into the Temple treasury.” So I took the 30 pieces of silver and threw them into the treasury at the Lord’s Temple. ¹⁴ Then I cut the stick named Union into two pieces. I did this to show that the union between Judah and Israel had been broken.

¹⁵ Then the Lord said to me, “Now, get the things a foolish shepherd might use. ¹⁶ This will show that I will get a new shepherd for this country. But this young man will not be able to take care of the sheep that are being destroyed. He will not be able to heal the hurt sheep or feed those that are left alive. And the healthy ones will be eaten completely—only their hoofs will be left.”

Visions About the Nations Around Judah

12 This is a message from the Lord about Israel. The Lord is the one who made the earth and the sky, and he put the human spirit in people. And this is what the Lord said: ² “Look, I will make Jerusalem like a cup of poison to the nations around her. The nations will come and attack that city, and all of Judah will be caught in the trap. ³ But I will make Jerusalem like a heavy rock—those who try to take it will hurt themselves. They will be cut and scratched. All the nations on earth will come together to fight against Jerusalem. ⁴ But at that time I will scare the horse, and the soldier riding it will panic. I will make all the enemy horses blind, but my eyes will be open—and I will be watching over Judah’s family. ⁵ The leaders of Judah will encourage the people and say, ‘The Lord All-Powerful is your God. He makes us strong.’ ⁶ At that time I will make the leaders of Judah like a fire burning in a forest. They will destroy their enemies like fire burning straw. They will destroy the enemy all around them, and the people in Jerusalem will again be able to sit back and relax.”

⁷ The Lord will save the people of Judah first, so the people in Jerusalem will not be able to brag too much. David’s family and the other people who live in Jerusalem will not be able to brag that they are better than the other people in Judah. ⁸ But the Lord will protect the people in Jerusalem. Even the man who trips and falls will become a great soldier like David. And the men from David’s family will be like gods—like the Lord’s own angel leading the people.

⁹ The Lord says, “At that time I will destroy the nations that came to fight against Jerusalem. ¹⁰ I will fill David’s family and the people living in Jerusalem with a spirit of kindness and mercy. They will look to me, the one they stabbed, and they will be very sad. They will be as sad as someone crying over the death of their only son, as sad as someone crying over the death of their firstborn son. ¹¹ There will be a time of great sadness and crying in Jerusalem. It will be like the time people cry over the death of Hadad Rimmon^[c] in Megiddo Valley. ¹² Each and every family will cry by itself. The men in David’s family will cry by themselves, and their wives will cry by themselves. The men in Nathan’s family will cry by themselves, and their wives will cry by themselves. ¹³ The men in Levi’s family will cry by themselves, and their wives will cry by themselves. The men in Simeon’s family will cry by themselves, and their wives will cry by themselves. ¹⁴ And the same thing will happen in all the other tribes. The men and women will cry by themselves.”

13 But at that time a new spring of water will be opened for David’s family and for the other people living in Jerusalem. That fountain will be to wash away their sins and to make the people pure.

No More False Prophets

² The Lord All-Powerful says, “At that time I will remove all the idols from the earth. People will not even remember their names, and I will remove the false prophets and unclean spirits from the earth. ³ Whoever continues to prophesy will be punished. Even their parents, their own mother and father, will say to them, ‘You have spoken lies in the name of the Lord, so you must die!’ Their own mother and father will stab them for prophesying. ⁴ At that time the prophets will be ashamed of their visions and prophecies. They will not wear the rough cloth that shows a person is a prophet. They will not wear those clothes to trick people with the lies they call prophecies. ⁵ They will say, ‘I am not a prophet. I am a farmer. I have worked as a farmer since I was a little child.’ ⁶ But other people will say, ‘Then what are these wounds in your hands?’ He will say, ‘I was beaten in the house of my friends.’”

⁷ The Lord All-Powerful says, “Sword, wake up and strike the shepherd, my friend! Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will run away. And I will punish those little ones. ⁸ Two-thirds of the people in the land will be struck down and die,” says the Lord, “but one-third will survive. ⁹ Then I will test those survivors by giving them many troubles. The troubles will be like the fire a person uses to prove silver is pure. I will test them the way a person tests gold. Then they will call to me for help, and I will answer them. I will say, ‘You are my people.’ And they will say, ‘The Lord is my God.’”

The Day of Judgment

14 Look, the Lord has a special day of judgment coming, when the riches you have taken will be divided in your city. ² I will bring all the nations together to fight against Jerusalem. They will capture the city and destroy the houses. The women will be raped, and half of the people will be taken away as prisoners. But the rest of the people will not be taken from the city. ³ Then the Lord will go to war with those nations. It will be a real battle. ⁴ At that time he will stand on the Mount of Olives, the hill east of Jerusalem. The Mount of Olives will split in half. Part of the mountain will move to the north, and part to the south. A deep valley will open up, from the east to the west. ⁵ You will try to run away as that mountain valley comes closer and closer to you. You will run away like the time you ran from the earthquake during the time of King Uzziah of Judah. But the Lord my God will come, and all his holy ones^[d] will be with him.

^6-7 That will be a very special day. There will not be any light, cold, or frost. Only the Lord knows how, but there will not be any day or night. Then, when darkness usually comes, there will still be light. ⁸ At that time water will flow continually from Jerusalem.^[e] That stream will split and part of it will flow east, and part of it will flow west to the Mediterranean Sea. And it will flow all year long, in the summer as well as in the winter. ⁹ And the Lord will be the King of the whole world. At that time all people will worship him as the only Lord with only one name. ¹⁰ And the whole land from Geba in the north to Rimmon in the south past Jerusalem will become a flat plain. The city of Jerusalem will stay in the same place, but it will be built high above the land around it. It will reach from the Benjamin Gate to the First Gate (that is, the Corner Gate) and from the Tower of Hananel to the king’s winepresses. ¹¹ People will move to Jerusalem because it will be a safe place to live. It will never again be destroyed.

¹² But the Lord will punish the nations that fought against Jerusalem. He will send a terrible disease against them. Their skin will begin to rot while the people are still alive. Their eyes will rot in their sockets, and their tongues will rot in their mouths. ^13-15 That terrible disease will be in the enemy camp, and all their horses, mules, camels, and donkeys will catch that terrible disease.

At that time they will be afraid of the Lord. Each man will grab his neighbor’s hand, and they will fight each other. Even Judah will fight against Jerusalem. This will happen even while armies from all the nations are surrounding the city. There will be much gold, silver, and clothing. ¹⁶ Some of the people who came to fight Jerusalem will survive. And every year they will come to worship the king, the Lord All-Powerful. They will come to celebrate the Festival of Shelters. ¹⁷ And if people from any of the families on earth don’t go to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord All-Powerful, no rain will fall on their land. ¹⁸ If any of the families in Egypt don’t come to celebrate the Festival of Shelters, they will get that terrible disease that the Lord caused the enemy nations to get. ¹⁹ That will be the punishment for Egypt, and for any other nation that does not come to celebrate the Festival of Shelters.

²⁰ At that time even the harnesses on the horses will have the label, holy to the lord.^[f] And all the pots used in the Lord’s Temple will be just as important as the bowls used at the altar. ²¹ In fact, every dish in Jerusalem and Judah will have the label, holy to the lord all-powerful. All the people offering sacrifices will come, take those dishes, and cook their special meals in them.

At that time there will not be any merchants buying and selling things^[g] in the Temple of the Lord All-Powerful.