Zechariah 12

1An oracle: The word of Yahweh concerning Israel. Yahweh, who stretches out the heavens, lays the foundation of the earth, and forms the human spirit within a person, declares:

2I am going to make Jerusalem a cup that sends all the surrounding peoples reeling. It will be against Judah too, when Jerusalem is under siege.

3On that day I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all the peoples; all who try to lift it will be badly injured. And all the nations of the earth will gather against it.

4On that day, declares Yahweh, I will strike every horse with panic and its rider with madness. I will keep my eyes open over the house of Judah, but I will strike every horse of the peoples with blindness.

5Then the clan leaders of Judah will say in their hearts, “The inhabitants of Jerusalem are my strength through Yahweh of Armies, their God.”

6On that day I will make the clan leaders of Judah like a firepot in a pile of wood, like a flaming torch among sheaves of grain. They will devour all the surrounding peoples, right and left, while Jerusalem remains in its place, in Jerusalem.

7Yahweh will save the tents of Judah first, so that the glory of the house of David and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem will not be greater than that of Judah.

8On that day Yahweh will shield the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the weakest among them on that day will be like David, and the house of David will be like God, like the angel of Yahweh going before them.

9On that day I will set out to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.

10I will pour out on the house of David and on those who live in Jerusalem a spirit of grace and of pleading for mercy. They will look to me, the one whom they pierced, and they will wail over him as people wail over an only child, and grieve bitterly over him as people grieve over a firstborn.

11On that day the mourning in Jerusalem will be as great as the mourning of Hadad-rimmon in the plain of Megiddo.

12The land will mourn, each family by itself: the family of the house of David by itself, and their wives by themselves; the family of the house of Nathan by itself, and their wives by themselves;

13the family of the house of Levi by itself, and their wives by themselves; the family of the Shimeites by itself, and their wives by themselves;

14and all the remaining families, each family by itself, and their wives by themselves.