World English Bible · The Persian return
Zechariah 13
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"In that day there will be a fountain opened to house and to the inhabitants of , for and for uncleanness. It will come to pass in that day, of Armies, that I will the names of the idols out of the land, and they will be remembered no more. I will also cause and of impurity to pass out of the land. It will happen that when anyone still prophesies, then his and his mother who bore him will tell him, 'You must , because you speak lies in name;' and his and his mother who bore him will stab him when he prophesies. It will happen in that day that will each be of his when he prophesies; they won't wear a hairy mantle to deceive, but he will say, 'I am no , I am a tiller of the ground; for I have been made a from my youth.' One will say to him, 'What are these wounds between your arms?' Then he will answer, 'Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends.' "Awake, , against , and against the man who is close to me," of Armies. "Strike the , and the sheep will be scattered; and I will turn my hand against the little ones. It shall happen that in all the land," , "two parts in it will and ; but the third will be left in it. I will bring the third part into the , and will refine them as silver is refined, and will them like gold is . They will call on my name, and I will hear them. I will say, 'It is my people;' and they will say, ' is my .'"
A public domain modern English translation, free to read and share. Notes and cards are EKLI’s own.
The world at this moment · The Persian return, 539 BC to 332 BC ›
Persia takes Babylon and reverses its policy, sending exiled peoples home to rebuild their temples. Judah returns as a small province, rebuilding under imperial permission rather than independence.
- Persia
- The largest empire the world had yet seen, from the Indus to the Aegean, run through provinces, a royal road, and a postal system. Its policy on conquered peoples was to send them home and fund their temples, in exchange for loyalty and prayers for the king. The Cyrus Cylinder states the policy in Cyrus's own words, and Ezra opens with the same policy applied to Judah.
- Judah
- A small, poor province called Yehud, a fraction of the old kingdom, with a rebuilt temple that made the people who remembered the first one weep. No king, and no prospect of one. Leadership passes to priests and scribes, which shapes everything afterward.
- Greece
- Persia and Greece collide at Marathon and Salamis, Persia loses, and Athens spends the following decades on the Parthenon, tragedy, and Socrates. Herodotus writes the first history in order to explain that war. Then Plato and Aristotle, whose vocabulary the church will still be using at Nicaea eight centuries later.
- Further afield
- Rome throws out its kings and becomes a republic. In India and China this is the age of the Buddha's early followers and of Confucian teaching taking hold. More of what the world still thinks with was invented in this era than in almost any other.