Add parallel Print Page Options

Chapter 1

Call for Obedience. In the second year of Darius,[a] in the eighth month, the word of the Lord came to the prophet Zechariah, son of Berechiah, son of Iddo: The Lord was very angry with your ancestors.[b](A) Say to them: Thus says the Lord of hosts, Return to me—oracle of the Lord[c] of hosts—and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts. Do not be like your ancestors to whom the earlier prophets[d] proclaimed: Thus says the Lord of hosts: Turn from your evil ways and from your wicked deeds.(B) But they did not listen or pay attention to me(C)—oracle of the Lord.— Your ancestors, where are they? And the prophets, can they live forever? But my words and my statutes, with which I charged my servants the prophets, did these not overtake your ancestors?(D) Then they repented[e] and admitted: “Just as the Lord of hosts intended to treat us according to our ways and deeds, so the Lord has done.”

First Vision: Horses Patrolling the Earth.(E)

Read full chapter

Footnotes

  1. 1:1 Darius: Darius I, emperor of Persia from 522 to 486 B.C. The second year…eighth month: October/November 520 B.C., i.e., prior to the latest date in Haggai (Dec. 18, 520 B.C., Hg 2:10). Unlike other prophets, Haggai and Zechariah 1–8 contain specific chronological information, probably because they were sensitive to the imminent end of the expected seventy years of exile. See note on Zec 1:12.
  2. 1:2 Your ancestors: refers to the preexilic people of Judah, who were subjected to Babylonian destruction and exile.
  3. 1:3 Oracle of the Lord: a phrase used extensively in prophetic books to indicate divine speech.
  4. 1:4 Earlier prophets: preexilic prophets of the Lord. There are many allusions to them in Zechariah, indicating their influence on the postexilic community (see 7:7, 12).
  5. 1:6 Repented: the Hebrew word shub literally means “turn back.” This term is often used to speak of repentance as a return to the covenantal relationship between Israel and the Lord.