Zechariah 10-14
9 “And I will sow them among the peoples, and those far off will remember Me. They will rear their children, and they will return. 10 And I shall bring them back from the land of Egypt and gather them in from the Assyrians. I shall bring them into the land of Gilead and into Lebanon; not even one of them will be left behind. 11 They will pass through the narrow sea and will strike the waves of the sea, and all the full depths of the rivers shall be dried up. All the arrogance of the Assyrians shall be taken away, and the scepter of Egypt shall be stripped away. 12 And I will strengthen them in the Lord their God, and they shall boast in His name,” says the Lord.
The Shepherds
1 Open your doors, O Lebanon, and let the fire devour your cedars. 2 Let the pine wail, for the cedar has fallen; because the mighty men have been greatly afflicted. Wail, oak trees of the Basanite land, for the thickly wooded forest has fallen. 3 The sound of wailing is from the shepherds, for their greatness has been brought low; the sound of roaring lions, the arrogance of the Jordan has languished. 4 Thus says the Lord Almighty: “Tend the sheep of the slaughter like a shepherd, 5 the ones whose possessors have slaughtered and did not repent, and those selling them said, ‘Blessed be the Lord, for we have become rich and the shepherds themselves suffered nothing because of them.’ 6 Therefore I will no longer spare the inhabitants of the land,” says the Lord, “but behold, I will deliver men up, each one into the hand of his neighbor and into the hand of his king. They shall cut the land into pieces, and I will not deliver them from their hand.”
The Two Staffs
7 But I shall tend the sheep of the slaughter in the land of Canaan, and I will take to myself two staffs: the one I called Beauty and the other one I called Line, and I shall tend the flock. 8 And I shall cut off three shepherds in one month, and my soul shall be weighed down by them, for their souls have roared against me. 9 And I said, “I will not tend to you; that which dies, let it die, and that which perishes, let it perish, and let the rest of them devour the flesh each of his neighbor.”
10 And I shall take my staff Beauty, and I shall cast it away, to break my covenant which I made with all the people. 11 And in that day they will be scattered about. And the Canaanites shall know the flock is kept safe, for this is the word of the Lord. 12 And I shall say to them, “If it is fitting in your judgment, give me my payment, or refuse it.” And they established my wage at thirty pieces of silver. 13 And the Lord said to me, “Drop them into the smelting furnace and see if it is proven, as in the same manner I was proven for their sake.” And I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them into the smelting furnace in the house of the Lord. 14 And I threw aside the second staff, the Line, to disband the possessions between Judah and Israel.
15 And the Lord further said to me, “Take even for yourself the equipment of a shepherd, of an unskilled shepherd. 16 For behold! I raise up a shepherd against the land, one who will not care for the sheep who are abandoned, nor seek the scattered ones, nor heal the injured, nor even guide the healthy. But instead, he will devour the flesh of the choice ones, and he will tear them apart joint by joint. 17 Woe to you shepherding the flock carelessly, forsaking the flock! The sword shall be against his arms, and against his right eye; his right arm shall be completely withered, and his right eye shall become totally blind!”
The Coming Deliverance for Judah
1 The burden of the word of the Lord to Israel: Thus says the Lord, who stretches out the heavens, who lays the foundation of the earth and forms the spirit of man within him: 2 “Behold, I make Jerusalem as a gate being shaken to all the peoples surrounding her; for in Judea there shall be a siege against Jerusalem.
3 “And it shall come to pass in that day that I shall make Jerusalem a stone to be walked upon by all the nations. Everyone trampling her underfoot will utterly mock her, and all the nations of the earth shall come together against her. 4 In that day,” says the Lord Almighty, “I shall smite every horse with bewilderment, and I shall bring a state of total confusion against its rider. But I shall open My eyes upon the house of Judah, and I shall smite all the horses of the nations with blindness. 5 And the captains of thousands of Judah shall say in their hearts, ‘We shall find for ourselves those inhabiting Jerusalem with the Lord Almighty, their God.’ 6 In that day I will make the captains of thousands of Judah as a burning torch of fire among the trees and like a torch in dried straw. They shall consume all nations surrounding her, both on the right and on the left, and Jerusalem will again dwell by herself. 7 And the Lord shall preserve the dwelling places of Judah as at the beginning, that the boast of the house of David and the pride of the inhabitants of Jerusalem may not magnify themselves over Judah.
8 “And in that day, it shall come to pass that the Lord shall defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and in that day, the one who is weak among them will be as the house of David, and the house of David as the house of God, as the Angel of the Lord before them. 9 It shall come to pass in that day that I shall seek to drive away all the nations that come against Jerusalem. 10 And I will pour the spirit of grace and compassion upon the house of David and those inhabiting Jerusalem, and they shall look upon Me whom they mocked, and they will mourn for Him as for a beloved one, and they shall grieve profoundly as for a firstborn son.
11 “In that day, the lamentation in Jerusalem shall be very great, like the mourning for the pomegranate orchard being cut down in the plain. 12 And the land itself shall mourn throughout the tribe, the tribe of the house of David by itself and their wives by themselves; the tribe of the house of Nathan by itself and their wives by themselves; 13 the tribe of the house of Levi by itself and their wives by themselves; the tribe of Symeon by itself and their wives by themselves; 14 and all the remaining tribes, every tribe by itself and their wives by themselves.
The End of False Prophets and Idols
1 “In that day every place shall be opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. 2 And it shall come to pass in that day,” says the Lord of hosts, “that I will utterly destroy the names of the idols from the land, and their remembrance shall be no more. I will remove the false prophets and the unclean spirit from the land.
3 “And it shall come to pass that if a man still prophesy, his father and his mother who begot him will say to him, ‘You will not live, for you spoke falsehoods in the name of the Lord,’ and his father and his mother who begot him will bind him when he prophesies. 4 And it shall come to pass in that day that the prophets shall be put to shame, each by his vision when he prophesies, and they will put on a leather skin of hair because they spoke lies. 5 And one will say, ‘I am not a prophet, for I am a tiller of the soil; a man brought me up thus from my youth.’ 6 And I will say to him, ‘What are these wounds in the middle of your hands?’ And he will say, ‘Those with which I was wounded in the house of my beloved.’
7 “O sword, raise up against My shepherds, and against My fellow-man,” says the Lord Almighty. “Smite the shepherds and draw out the sheep, and I shall bring My hand against the shepherds. 8 And it will come to pass in all the land,” says the Lord, “two of every three will be utterly destroyed and shall die, but the other third will be left in it. 9 And I shall bring the remaining third through the fire, and I shall try them as silver is tried, and I will prove them as gold itself is proven. He will call upon My name, and I will hear him, and I will say, ‘This is My people,’ and they will say, ‘The Lord is my God.’ ”
The Day of the Lord
1 Behold, the days of the Lord come, and your plunder will be divided among you. 2 And I shall gather together all the nations to war against Jerusalem. The city shall be taken, the houses plundered, the women defiled, and half of the city will go forth into exile, but the rest of My people shall not be utterly cut off from the city. 3 And the Lord will go forth and prepare for battle against those nations, as in the day of His battle array in the day of war. 4 And on that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which faces Jerusalem on the east. And the Mount of Olives shall be split in two, half towards the east and half towards the sea, a very great divide; and half the mountain shall lean toward the north and half of it toward the south. 5 And the valley of my mountains will be blocked up, and the ravine of the mountains will be joined as far as Azal. And it will be blocked up as he had blocked it up in the days of the earthquake, in the days of Uzziah the king of Judah, and the Lord my God shall come and all the saints with Him. 6 And in that day, it shall be that there will not be any light, but there shall be cold and frost 7 for one day, and that day shall be known to the Lord. It will be neither a day nor a night, but towards evening there will be light.
8 And in that day living water shall come forth out of Jerusalem, half of it toward the eastern sea and half toward the western sea. So it will be in both summer and spring. 9 And the Lord shall be King of all the earth, and in that day the Lord shall be one Lord, and His name one name, 10 encircling all the land, even the wilderness from Geba to Rimmon south of Jerusalem. But Rama shall remain in her place; from Benjamin’s Gate to the place of the First Gate; to the Gate of the Corners, and to the Tower of Hananeel, as far as the king’s winepresses, 11 they will dwell in her, and it will no longer be a curse. Jerusalem shall dwell securely.
12 And this will be the downfall with which the Lord will strike all the nations, as many as made war against Jerusalem. Their flesh will be eaten away as they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall pour out of their sockets, and their tongue shall melt away in their mouth. 13 In that day there shall be a state of great bewilderment upon them from the Lord. Each of them will seize the hand of his neighbor, and his hand will become locked with the person near to him. 14 And Judah shall draw up for battle in Jerusalem, and He will gather together the strength of all the surrounding peoples: the gold, the silver, and the apparel in great abundance. 15 And this will be the overthrow of the horses and the mules, the camels and the donkeys, and all the cattle that are in those camps throughout this downfall.
16 And it shall come to pass that whoever may be left of all the nations that came against Jerusalem, they too will go up every year to worship the King, the Lord Almighty, and celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles. 17 And it shall be that whoever from all the tribes of the land will not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord Almighty, even these will be added to the others. 18 And if the nation of Egypt shall not go up nor attend, upon these will come the downfall which the Lord will strike on all the nations, as many as do not come up to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles. 19 This will be the sin of Egypt and the sin of all the nations, as many as do not come up to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles.
20 In that day, there will be engraved in the bridle of every horse, “Holy to the Lord Almighty,” and the kettles in the house of the Lord will be like bowls before the altar. 21 And every kind of kettle in Jerusalem and Judah will be holy to the Lord Almighty; and all who sacrifice will come and take from them and shall cook in them. And in that day the Canaanite shall no longer be in the house of the Lord Almighty.
Psalms 99, 100
1 A psalm of thanksgiving.
Shout aloud to the Lord, all the earth;
2 Serve the Lord with gladness;
Come before Him with great joy.
3 Know this: the Lord, He is God;
He made us, and not we ourselves;
We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.
4 Enter into His gates with thanksgiving
And into His courts with hymns;
Give thanks to Him; praise His name;
5 For the Lord is good; His mercy is everlasting,
And His truth is from generation to generation.
1 A psalm by David.
O Lord, I will sing to You of mercy and judgment;
2 I will sing and understand in a blameless way;
When will You come to me?
I walked in the innocence of my heart in the midst of my house.
3 I have not set any lawless thing before my eyes;
I hated those who commit transgressions;
4 A crooked heart shall not cleave to me;
As for the evil man who turned away from me,
I did not know him.
5 He who secretly slanders his neighbor,
This one I chased away;
The one with an arrogant eye and insatiable heart,
With this one I did not eat.
6 My eyes were on the faithful of the earth, so they might dwell with me;
He who walks in a blameless way, this one ministered to me.
7 He who acts arrogantly did not dwell in the midst of my house;
He who speaks unjustly did not prosper before my eyes.
8 In the morning I slew all the sinners of the earth,
So as to destroy from the city of the Lord all the workers of lawlessness.
Proverbs 21:11–15
11 A righteous man understands the hearts of the ungodly,
And he despises the ungodly in their evils.
12 He who closes his ears that he might not listen to the weak,
He will also call upon someone, and there will be no one listening.
13 A secret gift calms anger,
But he who refrains from giving gifts stirs up strong anger.
14 It is the joy of the righteous to do judgment,
But a holy man is unclean before evildoers.
15 A man who wanders from the way of righteousness
Shall rest in an assembly of giants.
1 Timothy 6
1 Let as many bondservants as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honor, so that the name of God and His doctrine may not be blasphemed.
2 And those who have believing masters, let them not despise them because they are brethren, but rather serve them because those who are benefited are believers and beloved. Teach and exhort these things.
Error and Greed
3 If anyone teaches otherwise and does not consent to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which accords with godliness,
4 he is proud, knowing nothing, but is obsessed with disputes and arguments over words, from which come envy, strife, reviling, evil suspicions,
5 useless wranglings of men of corrupt minds and destitute of the truth, who suppose that godliness is a means of gain. From such withdraw yourself.
6 Now godliness with contentment is great gain.
7 For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.
8 And having food and clothing, with these we shall be content.
9 But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition.
10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
The Good Confession
11 But you, O man of God, flee these things and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, gentleness.
12 Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, to which you were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.
13 I urge you in the sight of God who gives life to all things, and before Christ Jesus who witnessed the good confession before Pontius Pilate,
14 that you keep this commandment without spot, blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ’s appearing,
15 which He will manifest in His own time, He who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords,
16 who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see, to whom be honor and everlasting power. Amen.
Instructions to the Rich
17 Command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty, nor to trust in uncertain riches but in the living God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy.
18 Let them do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to give, willing to share,
19 storing up for themselves a good foundation for the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life.
Guard the Faith
20 O Timothy! Guard what was committed to your trust, avoiding the profane and idle babblings and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge—
21 by professing it some have strayed concerning the faith. Grace be with you. Amen.