Be sure of this! The Lord who commands armies has decreed: The nations’ efforts will go up in smoke; their exhausting work will be for nothing. ¹ 

This is how they will be repaid for their arrogance, ¹  for they taunted and verbally harassed ²  the people of the Lord who commands armies.

The Lord who rules over all ¹  says this: “These people have said, ‘The time for rebuilding the Lord’s temple has not yet come.’” ² 

In that day,’ says the Lord who rules over all, ‘everyone will invite his friend to fellowship under his vine and under his fig tree.’” ¹ 

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

“‘It then came about that just as I ¹  cried out, but they would not obey, so they will cry out, but I will not listen,’ the Lord Lord who rules over all had said.

“The Lord who rules over all says, ‘I am very much concerned for Zion; indeed, I am so concerned for her that my rage will fall on those who hurt her.’

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

But I will be different now to this remnant of my people from the way I was in those days,’ says the Lord who rules over all,

Many peoples and powerful nations will come to Jerusalem to seek the Lord who rules over all and to ask his favor.

Then the leaders of Judah will say to themselves, ‘The inhabitants of Jerusalem are a means of strength to us through their God, the Lord who rules over all.’

Then you will know that I sent this commandment to you so that my covenant ¹  may continue to be with Levi,” says the Lord who rules over all.

For the lips of a priest should preserve knowledge of sacred things, and people should seek instruction from him ¹  because he is the messenger of the Lord who rules over all.

“All nations will call you happy, for you indeed will live in ¹  a delightful land,” says the Lord who rules over all.

Just ¹  as Isaiah predicted, “If the Lord of armies ²  had not left us descendants, we would have become like Sodom, and we would have resembled Gomorrah.” ³ 

Adorn yourself, then, with majesty and excellency, and clothe yourself with glory and honor!

At that time tribute will be brought to the Lord who commands armies, by a people that are tall and smooth-skinned, a people that are feared far and wide, a nation strong and victorious, whose land rivers divide. ¹  The tribute ²  will be brought to the place where the Lord who commands armies has chosen to reside, on Mount Zion. ³ 

But that day belongs to the Lord God who rules over all. ¹  It is the day when he will pay back his enemies. ²  His sword will devour them until its appetite is satisfied! It will drink their blood until it is full! ³  For the Lord God who rules over all ⁴  will offer them up as a sacrifice in the land of the north by the Euphrates River.

On that day,’ ¹  says the Lord who rules over all, ‘I will take you, Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, my servant,’ ²  says the Lord, ‘and I will make you like a signet ring, ³  for I have chosen you,’ says the Lord who rules over all.” ⁴ 

Indeed, they made their heart as hard as diamond, ¹  so that they could not obey the Torah and the other words the Lord who rules over all had sent by his Spirit through the former prophets. Therefore, the Lord who rules over all had poured out great wrath.