Zechariah 9:1

⁸The Lord sent a word into Jacob, and it falls on Israel. ⁹All the people will know, including Ephraim and the inhabitants of Samaria, who say in pride and in arrogance of heart, ¹⁰“The bricks have fallen, but we will build with cut stone. The sycamore fig trees have been cut down, but we will put cedars in their place.” ¹¹Therefore the LORD will set up on high against him the adversaries of Rezin, and will stir up his enemies, ¹²The Syrians in front, and the Philistines behind; and they will devour Israel with open mouth. For all this, his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still. ¹³Yet the people have not turned to him who struck them, neither have they sought the LORD of Armies. ¹⁴Therefore the LORD will cut off from Israel head and tail, palm branch and reed, in one day. ¹⁵The elder and the honorable man is the head, and the prophet who teaches lies is the tail. ¹⁶For those who lead this people lead them astray; and those who are led by them are destroyed. ¹⁷Therefore the Lord will not rejoice over their young men, neither will he have compassion on their fatherless and widows; for everyone is profane and an evildoer, and every mouth speaks folly. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still. ¹⁸For wickedness burns like a fire. It devours the briers and thorns; yes, it kindles in the thickets of the forest, and they roll upward in a column of smoke. ¹⁹Through the LORD of Armies’ wrath, the land is burned up; and the people are the fuel for the fire. No one spares his brother. ²⁰One will devour on the right hand, and be hungry; and he will eat on the left hand, and they will not be satisfied. Everyone will eat the flesh of his own arm: ²¹Manasseh eating Ephraim and Ephraim eating Manasseh, and they together will be against Judah. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.

¹⁵My eyes are ever on the LORD, for he will pluck my feet out of the net.

²³Of Damascus: “Hamath and Arpad are confounded, for they have heard evil news. They have melted away. There is sorrow on the sea. It can’t be quiet. ²⁴Damascus has grown feeble, she turns herself to flee, and trembling has seized her. Anguish and sorrows have taken hold of her, as of a woman in travail. ²⁵How is the city of praise not forsaken, the city of my joy? ²⁶Therefore her young men will fall in her streets, and all the men of war will be brought to silence in that day,” says the LORD of Armies. ²⁷“I will kindle a fire in the wall of Damascus, and it will devour the palaces of Ben Hadad.”

³The LORD says: “For three transgressions of Damascus, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment, because they have threshed Gilead with threshing instruments of iron; ⁴but I will send a fire into the house of Hazael, and it will devour the palaces of Ben Hadad. ⁵I will break the bar of Damascus, and cut off the inhabitant from the valley of Aven, and him who holds the scepter from the house of Eden; and the people of Syria shall go into captivity to Kir,” says the LORD.

¹The burden of Babylon, which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw.

¹²Our God, will you not judge them? For we have no might against this great company that comes against us. We don’t know what to do, but our eyes are on you.”

⁷In that day, people will look to their Maker, and their eyes will have respect for the Holy One of Israel. ⁸They will not look to the altars, the work of their hands; neither shall they respect that which their fingers have made, either the Asherah poles or the incense altars.

¹²The LORD says: “As the shepherd rescues out of the mouth of the lion two legs, or a piece of an ear, so shall the children of Israel be rescued who sit in Samaria on the corner of a couch, and on the silken cushions of a bed.”

¹⁹LORD, my strength, my stronghold, and my refuge in the day of affliction, the nations will come to you from the ends of the earth, and will say, “Our fathers have inherited nothing but lies, vanity and things in which there is no profit.

¹⁵The eyes of all wait for you. You give them their food in due season.