1. The word of the Lord of Hosts came to me.
2. the Lord of Hosts says: “I am jealous for Zion with great jealousy, and I am jealous for her with great wrath.”
3. the Lord says: “I have returned to Zion, and will dwell in the middle of Jerusalem. Jerusalem shall be called ‘The City of Truth;’ and the mountain of the Lord of Hosts, ‘The Holy Mountain.’”
4. the Lord of Hosts says: “Old men and old women will again dwell in the streets of Jerusalem, every man with his staff in his hand for very age.
5. The streets of the city will be full of boys and girls playing in its streets.”
6. the Lord of Hosts says: “If it is marvellous in the eyes of the remnant of this people in those days, should it also be marvellous in my eyes?” says the Lord of Hosts.
7. the Lord of Hosts says: “Behold, I will save my people from the east country, and from the west country;
8. and I will bring them, and they will dwell within Jerusalem; and they will be my people, and I will be their God, in truth and in righteousness.”
9. the Lord of Hosts says: “Let your hands be strong, you who hear in these days these words from the mouth of the prophets who were in the day that the foundation of the house of the Lord of Hosts was laid, even the temple, that it might be built.
10. For before those days there was no wages for man, nor any wages for an animal; neither was there any peace to him who went out or came in, because of the adversary. For I set all men everyone against his neighbour.
11. But now I will not be to the remnant of this people as in the former days,” says the Lord of Hosts.
12. “For the seed of peace and the vine will yield its fruit, and the ground will give its increase, and the heavens will give their dew; and I will cause the remnant of this people to inherit all these things.