Zechariah - Chapter 12

¹ A proclamation. The word of Yahweh about Israel (and also about Judah). Yahweh, who spread out the heaven and founded the earth and formed the human spirit within, declares:

² 'Look, I shall make Jerusalem a cup to set all the surrounding peoples reeling. (That will be at the time of the siege of Jerusalem.)

³ 'When that day comes, I shall make Jerusalem a stone too heavy for all the peoples to lift; all those who try to lift it will hurt themselves severely, although all the nations of the world will be massed against her.

⁴ When that day comes -- declares Yahweh -- I shall strike all the horses with panic and their riders with madness. And I shall strike all the peoples with blindness. (But I shall keep watch over Judah.)

⁵ Then the rulers of Judah will say to themselves, "The strength of the inhabitants of Jerusalem lies in Yahweh Sabaoth their God."

⁶ When that day comes, I shall make the rulers of Judah like a brazier burning in a pile of wood, like a torch flaming in a sheaf; and they will devour all the peoples round them to right and left. And Jerusalem will be full of people as before, where she stands (in Jerusalem).

⁷ Yahweh will first save the tents of Judah, so that the glory of the House of David and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem do not increase at Judah's expense.

⁸ When that day comes, Yahweh will protect the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and the frailest of them will be like David when that day comes, and the House of David will be like God, like the angel of Yahweh, at their head.

⁹ 'When that day comes, I shall set about destroying all the nations who advance against Jerusalem.

¹⁰ But over the House of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem I shall pour out a spirit of grace and prayer, and they will look to me. They will mourn for the one whom they have pierced as though for an only child, and weep for him as people weep for a first-born child.

¹¹ When that day comes, the mourning in Jerusalem will be as great as the mourning for Hadad Rimmon in the Plain of Megiddo.

¹² And the country will mourn clan by clan: The clan of the House of David by itself, and their women by themselves; the clan of the House of Nathan by itself, and their women by themselves;

¹³ the clan of the House of Levi by itself, and their women by themselves; the clan of the House of Shimei by itself, and their women by themselves;

¹⁴ all the rest of the clans, every clan by itself, and their women by themselves.'