World English Bible · The Persian return
Zechariah 14
Touch any underlined name to see who or where it is. Tap a verse number to see where it is taken up elsewhere.
Behold, a comes, when your plunder will be divided within you. For I will gather all nations against to battle; and the city will be taken, the houses rifled, and the women ravished. Half of the city will go out into , and the rest of the people will not from the city. Then will go out and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle. His feet will stand in that day on , which is before on the east; and will be split in two from east to west, making a very great valley. Half of the mountain will move toward the north, and half of it toward the south. You shall flee by the valley of my mountains, for the valley of the mountains shall reach to . Yes, you shall flee, like you fled from before the earthquake in the days of king of Judah. my will come, and all the with you. It will happen in that day that there will not be , cold, or frost. It will be a unique day which is known to —not day, and not night; but it will come to pass that at evening time there will be . It will happen in that day that living waters will go out from , half of them toward the eastern sea, and half of them toward the western sea. It will be so in summer and in winter. will be King over all the earth. In that day will be one, and his name one. All the land will be made like the , from to south of ; and she will be lifted up and will in her place, from to the place of the first , to the corner , and from to the king's presses. Men will therein, and there will be no more ; but will safely. This will be the plague with which will strike all the peoples who have fought against : their will consume away while they stand on their feet, and their eyes will consume away in their sockets, and their will consume away in their . It will happen in that day that a great panic from will be among them; and they will each seize the hand of his neighbor, and his hand will rise up against the hand of his neighbor. Judah also will fight at ; and the wealth of all the surrounding nations will be gathered together: gold, silver, and clothing, in great abundance. A plague like this will fall on the horse, on the mule, on the camel, on the donkey, and on all the animals that will be in those camps. It will happen that everyone who is left of all the nations that came against will go up from year to year to the King, of Armies, and to keep the feast of . It will be that whoever of all the families of the earth doesn't go up to to the King, of Armies, on them there will be no . If the family of doesn't go up and doesn't come, neither will it on them. This will be the plague with which will strike the nations that don't go up to keep the feast of . This will be the punishment of and the punishment of all the nations that don't go up to keep the feast of . In that day there will be inscribed on the bells of the horses, " TO "; and the pots in house will be like the bowls before the . Yes, every pot in and in Judah will be to of Armies; and all those who will come and take of them, and cook in them. In that day there will no longer be a in the of Armies.
A public domain modern English translation, free to read and share. Notes and cards are EKLI’s own.
Christians read this chapter differently
- Should Christians keep the biblical feasts? · Zechariah 14:16-19
Every view at its strongest, with who holds it and what it has to answer for.
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.