Zechariah

I looked up again, and I saw a flying scroll.

“What do you see?” he asked. And I replied, “A flying scroll, twenty cubits long and ten cubits wide.”

“That,” he explained to me, “is the curse that goes out over the whole land. For everyone who has stolen, as is forbidden on one side [of the scroll], has gone unpunished; and everyone who has sworn [falsely], as is forbidden on the other side of it, has gone unpunished.aFor everyone who has stolen … and everyone who has sworn … has gone unpunished Meaning of Heb. uncertain.

[But] I have sent it forth—declares GOD of Hosts—and [the curse] shall enter the house of the thief and the house of the one who swears falsely by My name, and it shall lodge inside their houses and shall consume them to the last timber and stone.”

Then the angel who talked with me came forward and said, “Now look up and note this other object that is approaching.”

I asked, “What is it?” And he said, “This tubbtub Heb. ephah, a measure of capacity. that is approaching—this,” said he, “is their eyeceye Septuagint and Syriac read “guilt.” in all the land.”

And behold, a disk of lead was lifted, revealing a female figuredfemale figure Apparently a purported goddess or her idol; cf. v. 11. seated inside the tub.

“That,” he said, “is Wickedness”; and, thrusting her back inside the tub, he pressed the leaden weight into the tub’s mouth.

I looked up again and saw two female figures come soaring with the wind in their wings—they had wings like those of a stork—and carry off the tub between earth and sky.

“Where are they taking the tub?” I asked the angel who talked with me.

And he answered, “To build a shrine for iteit Or “her”; cf. vv. 7–8 and Ibn Ezra. in the land of Shinar;fShinar I.e., Babylonia; cf. Gen. 10.10; 11.2, 9. [a stand] shall be erected for it, and itgit Or “she”; cf. vv. 7–8. shall be set down there upon the stand.”