Bible Reading Plan
October 11
Zechariah 11-14
Chapter 11
The Doomed Flock
1 Open your doors, O Lebanon,
That a fire may feed on your cedars.
2 Wail, O cypress, for the cedar has fallen,
Because the glorious trees have been destroyed;
Wail, O oaks of Bashan,
For the impenetrable forest has come down.
3 There is a sound of the shepherds’ wail,
For their glory is ruined;
There is a sound of the young lions’ roar,
For the pride of the Jordan is ruined.
4 Thus says the Lord my God, “Pasture the flock doomed to slaughter.
5 “Those who buy them slay them and go unpunished, and each of those
who sell them says, ‘Blessed be the Lord, for I have become rich!’ And
their own shepherds have no pity on them.
6 “For I will no longer have pity on the inhabitants of the land,” declares
the Lord; “but behold, I will cause the men to fall, each into another’s
power and into the power of his king; and they will strike the land, and
I will not deliver them from their power.”
7 So I pastured the flock doomed to slaughter, hence the afflicted of the
flock. And I took for myself two staffs: the one I called Favor and the
other I called Union; so I pastured the flock.
8 Then I annihilated the three shepherds in one month, for my soul was impatient
with them, and their soul also was weary of me.
9 Then I said, “I will not pasture you. What is to die, let it die,
and what is to be annihilated, let it be annihilated; and let those who are
left eat one another’s flesh.”
10 I took my staff Favor and cut it in pieces, to break my covenant which
I had made with all the peoples.
11 So it was broken on that day, and thus the afflicted of the flock who
were watching me realized that it was the word of the Lord.
12 I said to them, “If it is good in your sight, give me my wages; but
if not, never mind!” So they weighed out thirty shekels of silver as
my wages.
13 Then the Lord said to me, “Throw it to the potter, that magnificent
price at which I was valued by them.” So I took the thirty shekels of silver
and threw them to the potter in the house of the Lord.
14 Then I cut in pieces my second staff Union, to break the brotherhood
between Judah and Israel.
15 The Lord said to me, “Take again for yourself the equipment of a foolish
shepherd.
16 “For behold, I am going to raise up a shepherd in the land who will
not care for the perishing, seek the scattered, heal the broken, or sustain
the one standing, but will devour the flesh of the fat sheep and tear off their
hoofs.
17 “Woe to the worthless shepherd
Who leaves the flock!
A sword will be on his arm
And on his right eye!
His arm will be totally withered
And his right eye will be blind.”
Chapter 12
Jerusalem to Be Attacked
1 The burden of the word of the Lord concerning Israel.
Thus declares the Lord who stretches out the heavens, lays the foundation
of the earth, and forms the spirit of man within him,
2 “Behold, I am going to make Jerusalem a cup that causes reeling to
all the peoples around; and when the siege is against Jerusalem, it will also
be against Judah.
3 “It will come about in that day that I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone
for all the peoples; all who lift it will be severely injured. And all the
nations of the earth will be gathered against it.
4 “In that day,” declares the Lord, “I will strike every horse
with bewilderment and his rider with madness. But I will watch over the house
of Judah, while I strike every horse of the peoples with blindness.
5 “Then the clans of Judah will say in their hearts, ‘A strong
support for us are the inhabitants of Jerusalem through the Lord of hosts, their
God.’
6 “In that day I will make the clans of Judah like a firepot among pieces
of wood and a flaming torch among sheaves, so they will consume on the right
hand and on the left all the surrounding peoples, while the inhabitants of
Jerusalem again dwell on their own sites in Jerusalem.
7 “The Lord also will save the tents of Judah first, so that the glory
of the house of David and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem will not
be magnified above Judah.
8 “In that day the Lord will defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and
the one who is feeble among them in that day will be like David, and the
house of David will be like God, like the angel of the Lord before them.
9 “And in that day I will set about to destroy all the nations that
come against Jerusalem.
10 “I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem,
the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they will look on Me whom
they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only
son, and they will weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn.
11 “In that day there will be great mourning in Jerusalem, like the mourning
of Hadadrimmon in the plain of Megiddo.
12 “The land will mourn, every family by itself; the family of the house
of David by itself and their wives by themselves; the family of the house of
Nathan by itself and their wives by themselves;
13 the family of the house of Levi by itself and their wives by themselves;
the family of the Shimeites by itself and their wives by themselves;
14 all the families that remain, every family by itself and their wives by
themselves.
Chapter 13
False Prophets Ashamed
1 “In that day a fountain will be opened for the house of David and for
the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for impurity.
2 “It will come about in that day,” declares the Lord of hosts, “that
I will cut off the names of the idols from the land, and they will no longer
be remembered; and I will also remove the prophets and the unclean spirit
from the land.
3 “And if anyone still prophesies, then his father and mother who gave
birth to him will say to him, ‘You shall not live, for you have spoken
falsely in the name of the Lord’; and his father and mother who gave
birth to him will pierce him through when he prophesies.
4 “Also it will come about in that day that the prophets will each be ashamed
of his vision when he prophesies, and they will not put on a hairy robe in
order to deceive;
5 but he will say, ‘I am not a prophet; I am a tiller of the ground,
for a man sold me as a slave in my youth.’
6 “And one will say to him, ‘What are these wounds between your
arms?’ Then he will say, ‘Those with which I was wounded in the
house of my friends.’
7 “Awake, O sword, against My Shepherd,
And against the man, My Associate,”
Declares the Lord of hosts.
“
Strike the Shepherd that the sheep may be scattered;
And I will turn My hand against the little ones.
8 “It will come about in all the land,”
Declares the Lord,
“
That two parts in it will be cut off and perish;
But the third will be left in it.
9 “And I will bring the third part through the fire,
Refine them as silver is refined,
And test them as gold is tested.
They will call on My name,
And I will answer them;
I will say, ‘They are My people,’
And they will say, ‘The Lord is my God.’ ”
Chapter 14
God Will Battle Jerusalem’s Foes
1 Behold, a day is coming for the Lord when the spoil taken from
you will be divided among you.
2 For I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the
city will be captured, the houses plundered, the women ravished and half
of the
city exiled, but the rest of the people will not be cut off from the city.
3 Then the Lord will go forth and fight against those nations, as when
He fights on a day of battle.
4 In that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which is in front
of Jerusalem on the east; and the Mount of Olives will be split in its middle
from east to west by a very large valley, so that half of the mountain will
move toward the north and the other half toward the south.
5 You will flee by the valley of My mountains, for the valley of the mountains
will reach to Azel; yes, you will flee just as you fled before the earthquake
in the days of Uzziah king of Judah. Then the Lord, my God, will come, and
all the holy ones with Him!
6 In that day there will be no light; the luminaries will dwindle.
7 For it will be a unique day which is known to the Lord, neither day nor
night, but it will come about that at evening time there will be light.
8 And in that day living waters will flow out of Jerusalem, half of them
toward the eastern sea and the other half toward the western sea; it will be
in summer
as well as in winter.
God Will Be King over All
9 And the Lord will be king over all the earth; in that day the Lord will
be the only one, and His name the only one.
10 All the land will be changed into a plain from Geba to Rimmon south
of Jerusalem; but Jerusalem will rise and remain on its site from Benjamin’s
Gate as far as the place of the First Gate to the Corner Gate, and from the
Tower of Hananel to the king’s wine presses.
11 People will live in it, and there will no longer be a curse, for Jerusalem
will dwell in security.
12 Now this will be the plague with which the Lord will strike all the peoples
who have gone to war against Jerusalem; their flesh will rot while they stand
on their feet, and their eyes will rot in their sockets, and their tongue will
rot in their mouth.
13 It will come about in that day that a great panic from the Lord will fall
on them; and they will seize one another’s hand, and the hand of one
will be lifted against the hand of another.
14 Judah also will fight at Jerusalem; and the wealth of all the surrounding
nations will be gathered, gold and silver and garments in great abundance.
15 So also like this plague will be the plague on the horse, the mule, the
camel, the donkey and all the cattle that will be in those camps.
16 Then it will come about that any who are left of all the nations that went
against Jerusalem will go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord
of hosts, and to celebrate the Feast of Booths.
17 And it will be that whichever of the families of the earth does not go up
to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, there will be no rain
on them.
18 If the family of Egypt does not go up or enter, then no rain will fall on
them; it will be the plague with which the Lord smites the nations who do
not go up to celebrate the Feast of Booths.
19 This will be the punishment of Egypt, and the punishment of all the
nations who do not go up to celebrate the Feast of Booths.
20 In that day there will be inscribed on the bells of the horses, “HOLY
TO THE LORD.” And the cooking pots in the Lord’s house will be
like the bowls before the altar.
21 Every cooking pot in Jerusalem and in Judah will be holy to the Lord of
hosts; and all who sacrifice will come and take of them and boil in them. And
there will no longer be a Canaanite in the house of the Lord of hosts in
that day.
"Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, © Copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation Used by permission." (www.Lockman.org)