Study Desk

"But did not My words (warnings) and My statutes, which I commanded My servants the prophets, overtake your fathers? Then they repented and said, 'As the LORD of hosts planned to do to us [in discipline and punishment], in accordance with our ways and our deeds, so has He dealt with us.'"'"

"But I am very angry with the nations who are at ease and feel secure; for while I was only a little angry, they furthered the disaster [against the people of Israel]."

I asked, "What are these [horns and craftsmen] coming to do?" And he said, "These are the horns (powers) that have scattered Judah so that no man raised up his head [because of the suffering inflicted by the Gentile nations]. But these craftsmen have come to terrify them and make them panic, and throw down the horns of the nations who have lifted up their horns against the land of Judah in order to scatter it."

Then he said to me, "This [continuous supply of oil] is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel [prince of Judah], saying, 'Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit [of whom the oil is a symbol],' says the LORD of hosts.

"Yes, [you are to build a temple of the LORD, but] it is He who shall build the [ultimate] temple of the LORD, and He shall bear the honor and majesty [as the only begotten of the Father] and sit and rule on His throne. And He shall be a Priest on His throne, and the counsel of peace shall be between the two offices [Priest and King]."'

"But they refused to listen and pay attention and turned a stubborn shoulder [stiffening themselves in resistance] and stopped up their ears.

"but I scattered them with a storm wind among all the nations whom they have not known. Thus the land was desolate after they had gone, so that no one passed through or returned, for they [by their sins] had made the pleasant land desolate and deserted."

'But now [in this time since you began to build] I will not treat the remnant of this people as in the former days,' declares the LORD of hosts.

"For I will no longer have pity on the inhabitants of the land," declares the LORD; "but behold, I will cause the men to fall, each into the hand of another and into the hands of his [foreign] king. And the enemy will strike the land, and I will not rescue the people from their hand."

I said to them, "If it seems good to you, give me my wages; but if not, do not." So they weighed out thirty pieces of silver as my wages.

The LORD said to me, "Take again for yourself the equipment [of a shepherd, but this time] of a foolish shepherd.

"For behold, I am going to raise up a [false] shepherd in the land who will not care for the perishing, seek the scattered, heal the broken, or feed the healthy; but will eat the flesh of the fat ones and tear off their hoofs [to consume everything].

"In that day," declares the LORD, "I will strike every horse with panic and his rider with madness; but I will open My eyes and watch over the house of Judah, and will strike every horse of the [opposing] nations with blindness.

but he will [deny his identity and] say, 'I am no prophet. I work the ground, because a man sold me as a slave in my youth.'

"It will come about in all the land," Declares the LORD, "Two parts in it will be cut off and perish, But the third will be left alive.

For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the city will be captured and the houses plundered and the women ravished; and half of the city will be exiled, but the rest of the people will not be cut off from the city.

But it will be a unique day which is known to the LORD—not day and not night, but at evening time there will be light.

All the land will be changed into a plain from Geba to Rimmon, [the Rimmon that is] south of Jerusalem; but Jerusalem will rise and remain [lifted up] on its site from Benjamin's Gate to the place of the First Gate to the Corner Gate, and from the Tower of Hananel to the king's wine presses.

"I have loved you," says the LORD. But you say, "How and in what way have You loved us?" "Was not Esau Jacob's brother?" declares the LORD. "Yet I loved Jacob (Israel);

but [in comparison with My love for Jacob] I have hated Esau (Edom), and I have made his mountains a wasteland, and have given his inheritance to the jackals of the wilderness."