So I began to shepherd the flock destined for slaughter, the most afflicted of all the flock. Then I took two staffs, calling one “Pleasantness” and the other “Binders,” and I tended the flock.

On that day I will make the leaders of Judah like an igniter among sticks and a burning torch among sheaves, and they will burn up all the surrounding nations right and left. Then the people of Jerusalem will settle once more in their place, the city of Jerusalem.

And also on that day,” says the Lord who rules over all, “I will remove the names of the idols from the land and they will never again be remembered. Moreover, I will remove the prophets and the unclean spirit from the land.

If the Egyptians will not do so, they will get no rain – instead there will be the kind of plague which the Lord inflicts on any nations that do not go up to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles.

The riders then agreed with the angel of the Lord, who was standing among the myrtle trees, “We have been walking about on the earth, and now everything is at rest and quiet.”

I asked, “Where are you going?” He replied, “To measure Jerusalem in order to determine its width and its length.”

“I am about to punish them in such a way,” he says, “that they will be looted by their own slaves.” Then you will know that the Lord who rules over all has sent me.

Next I saw Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, with Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him.

“What are you, you great mountain? Because of Zerubbabel you will become a level plain! And he will bring forth the temple capstone with shoutings of ‘Grace! Grace!’ because of this.”

He then said, “This woman represents wickedness,” and he pushed her down into the basket and placed the lead cover on top.

Then he cried out to me, “Look! The ones going to the northland have brought me peace about the northland.”

Then say to him, ‘The Lord who rules over all says, “Look – here is the man whose name is Branch, who will sprout up from his place and build the temple of the Lord.

Should you not have obeyed the words that the Lord cried out through the former prophets when Jerusalem was peacefully inhabited and her surrounding cities, the Negev, and the Shephelah were also populated?

“The Lord who rules over all said, ‘Exercise true judgment and show brotherhood and compassion to each other.

“The Lord who rules over all asserts, ‘I am about to save my people from the lands of the east and the west.

so, to the contrary, I have planned in these days to do good to Jerusalem and Judah – do not fear!

These are the things you must do: Speak the truth, each of you, to one another. Practice true and righteous judgment in your courts.

Next I eradicated the three shepherds in one month, for I ran out of patience with them and, indeed, they detested me as well.

I then said, “I will not shepherd you. What is to die, let it die, and what is to be eradicated, let it be eradicated. As for those who survive, let them eat each other’s flesh!”

Then I said to them, “If it seems good to you, pay me my wages, but if not, forget it.” So they weighed out my payment – thirty pieces of silver.