Zechariah 12

₁The Lord talked and He said things about Israel. He is the Lord who made heaven and earth and He gave life to all people. The Lord says:

₂‘I will now make Jerusalem like a cup of wine. All the nations around Israel will drink from this cup and they will fall down like drunk people. The people of Judah will also suffer when enemies attack Jerusalem.

₃This is what will happen: On that day I will make Jerusalem like a big stone and any of the nations that try to pick up this stone will hurt themselves badly. All the nations on earth will try to go to war_against Jerusalem, ₄but on that day I will make their horses afraid. The men on the horses will not know what to do. I will protect the people of Judah, but I will make the horses of the other nations blind. ₅Then the leaders_of_Judah will realise that the people of Jerusalem are strong because the Lord who rules over all helps them.

₆On that day I will make the leaders_of_Judah like a flame of fire in a heap of wood, or like fire in dry wheat bundles. They will kill the people of the nations around them but the people of Jerusalem will stay in Jerusalem. ₇I will save the people of Judah first, and then the descendants of King David and the people of Jerusalem will not think they are better than the other people of Judah.

₈On that day I will protect the people who live in Jerusalem. The person in Jerusalem who is the weakest will be like King David and the king will be like an angel from heaven. It will seem as if the Angel_of_the_Lord is going before them.

₉That is how, on that day, I will start to destroy all the people of the nations that always come to make war_against Jerusalem.

₁₀But I will make the descendants of King David and the people of Jerusalem feel sorry about what they have done. They will look up to Me and pray. They will cry and mourn because they have stabbed God with a spear. They will cry and mourn for him like someone who mourns for his only child who has died. They will cry for him like someone who cries because his oldest child has died.

₁₁On that day the people in Jerusalem will cry as much as the people in the Megiddo Valley who mourned the god Hadad-Rimmon. ₁₂All the people in the land will mourn. Each family will mourn. All the men will mourn together and all the women together. The descendants of King David will mourn, and also the descendants of Nathan. ₁₃The descendants of Levi, the descendants of Shimei, ₁₄and all the other families will mourn together.’