1. And the word of the Lord of hosts came to me, saying:
2. Thus saith the Lord of hosts: I have been jealous for Sion with a great jealousy, and with a great indignation have I been jealous for her.
3. Thus saith the Lord of hosts: I am returned to Sion, and I will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem: and Jerusalem shall be called The city of truth, and the mountain of the Lord of hosts, The sanctified mountain.
4. Thus saith the Lord of hosts: There shall yet old men and old women dwell in the streets of Jerusalem: and every man with his staff in his hand through multitude of days.
5. And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls, playing in the streets thereof.
6. Thus saith the Lord of hosts: If it seem hard in the eyes of the remnant of this people in those days: shall it be hard in my eyes, saith the Lord of hosts?
7. Thus saith the Lord of hosts: Behold I will save my people from the land of the east, and from the land of the going down of the sun.
8. And I will bring them, and they shall dwell in the midst of Jerusalem: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God in truth and in justice.
9. Thus saith the Lord of hosts: Let your hands be strengthened, you that hear in these days these words by the mouth of the prophets, in the day that the house of the Lord of hosts was founded, that the temple might be built.
10. For before those days there was no hire for men, neither was there hire for beasts, neither was there peace to him that came in, nor to him that went out, because of the tribulation: and I let all men go every one against his neighbour.