Today, we have the privilege of tackling Zechariah 5. This is a tricky passage, in many ways, most of which I'm totally planning to hide from you today. But if you're one of those who lean nerd, and who consider yourself to be a good Berean, who tests what you hear before you choose whether you will accept or reject what I teach, you should know you'll have your hands full today. If you're one of those who compare English translations of the Bible, to help you see scholarly disputes, you'll be shocked at the differences you see. And, for the most part, I'm just going to hide all of that. I've put some of the discussion in the footnotes, but I've figured out what I think is a pretty decent translation of the Hebrew, and I'm going to try to make things sound simple, and straightforward.
Our passage today breaks down into two parts. I take these two parts to be two interconnected parts to one basic vision. There's a part 1, and a part 2. There are a number of links that connect the two-- in both parts, we will see something flying. In both, there's something "going out." In both, we see God deliberately targeting particular sins, and sinners.
What we will see in this chapter is that God's end goal is the removal of these sins, and these people, from his land. God's taking out the trash, basically, and creating a society that's ordered, and structured, how He wants. And perhaps most importantly, in both halves of this vision, we see a focus (once we squint, using OT glasses) on the marketplace. God is working to set up a society where people buy and sell in an honest, righteous way, and where people respect their neighbor's property. What's yours, is yours. What's mine, is mine. And the day will come, when everyone who lives in God's kingdom, in God's presence, will respect that, and interact with each other financially in a straightforward, honest, and transparent way.
The first half of our vision runs from Zechariah 5:1-4. Let's read verses 1-2:
(1) and I again lifted up my eyes,
and I saw,
and LOOK! A flying scroll!,
(2) and he said to me,
"What [are] you seeing?,"
and I said,
"I [am] seeing a flying scroll.
Its length [is] 20 in cubits (roughly 30 feet?),
while its width [is] 10 cubits (roughly 15 feet?),"
We are used to going outside, and seeing things flying through the air (all of this is building off Max Rogland's sermon on Zechariah 5:1-4). Planes, and chemtrails, are just an ordinary part of life. Helicopters, drones, and hot air balloons are less common, and we might stop to watch them. But no one is surprised to go outside, and see humans, or human inventions, flying through the air.
But for most of human history, the only things that flew were birds, and insects. So when Zechariah sees a flying scroll here, that would be shocking. Scrolls don't fly.
The other thing that makes this vision shocking, is the dimensions of the scroll. Scrolls could be 30 feet long, but they'd typically be about a foot wide. It's uncomfortable reading anything much wider than that. It'd also be uncomfortable working with something that wide. We'd look like a little kid, trying to fold his parents' king size bed sheets.
So Zechariah sees this huge flying scroll, that's the size of a billboard. What does this mean? And how can a scroll fly?
Verse 3:
(3) and he said to me,
"This [is] the curse about to come/go out upon the surface of all the land,
because everyone stealing from here like this has been unpunished.
This flying scroll, represents a curse that God is about to send out on all the surface of the land.
And there's a specific reason God is about to send out this curse. "Everyone from here like this has been unpunished."
There are certain types of sins, where it's obvious when you've done the wrong thing (this again builds off Max Rogland's sermon). You attack someone without cause. You gossip. You lose your temper. Everyone walks away from that thinking, "That person did a really terrible thing, and should apologize." In the words of 1 Timothy 5:24, some people's sins go before them. Some sins are obvious to the whole world.
With other types of sins, the whole truth about something doesn't surface until much later. If someone steals a snowblower out of your garage, or a bike, you'll realize pretty quickly that something is missing. But you might not know who did it. Or if someone decides they will defraud the state of Minnesota for millions of dollars by running a fake daycare, or fake center for kids who fake being autistic, that act of sin might stay hidden for years. Sometimes, you don't even know there's a thief until hundreds of millions of dollars have disappeared.
We live in an imperfect world, with imperfect people. We also know that some sins are really damaging to society as a whole. Some sins-- like stealing-- tear at the very fabric of society. When stealing and fraud is widespread, businesses are forced to close. Prices have to go up, to cover for what's stolen. If people steal from the government, taxes have to sky rocket, to compensate for the fraud.
Ideally, when people steal, those people will be caught, and punished. They'll have to repay what they stole, and make extra compensation to that person they stole from, on top of that. But sometimes, the bad guys get away. The police don't catch them. The court system doesn't punish them. And they get to go on, continuing to steal, indefinitely.
If you've ever had something stolen from you, and had that person get away with it, it's an incredibly frustrating experience. My first weekend at seminary, someone stole my bike. This wasn't like a serious, hardcore bike like my wife's cousin might use to go 75 miles in a day. This bike was more like $600, but it had sentimental value-- my wife and I had used part of our wedding money, to purchase matching bikes that we could take to go out biking together. The thief was never caught, and there's some part of me, every time I see my wife's matching bike, that remembers the absence of my own.
Thieves are not always caught. And when thieves aren't caught, they tend to become more and more bold, taking bigger and bigger things. They get better at it, as well, and become more difficult to catch.
All of this is something that really bothers God. Ideally, again, those people are caught, and punished by the government. But sometimes, thieves aren't caught.
It's into this situation, in Zechariah 5:3, that God's flying scroll enters the scene. This flying scroll is a curse, that's about to go out upon the whole surface of the land. This flying scroll will punish those who've been getting away with stealing.
If you asked any soldier fighting in the Russian-Ukraine war, what's the worst, scariest part of the battle, the answer you will probably get, is the drones. There are drones everywhere, packed with explosives, and those drones are constantly hunting people. Once they spot you, you can't get away from them. You can hear them. You might see them. But there's a moment, if you're caught out in the open, where you realize with terror, that that drone is not on your side. It's faster than you. It can go anywhere you go. And probably, you're about to die (this part again in many ways builds off Max Rogland's sermon).
God's flying curse scroll is terrifying like that, with one critical difference. God already knows where the thief is. The thieves have been spotted. Humans might not have figured out who they are. A gifted thief might not even be a suspect. But God knows. And this flying curse scroll is coming straight for those people.
With this, we come to verse 4. Here, we find that Zechariah's vision gets explained, and expanded on a little:
(4) I will send it out-- utterance of Yahweh of Armies--
and/that it will enter the house of the thief and the house of the one swearing in my name for deception/emptiness,
and/that it will abide/spend the night in the midst of his house,
and/that it will consume it,
both its beams,
and its stones,
We see here that this flying curse scroll doesn't have a life of its own. It's not like an AI powered drone. This scroll is sent out by God. We also see that this scroll seems to target two groups of people, not just one (but it's really probably one and the same group, we will find out shortly). It's not just the unpunished thief, but also the "one swearing in my name falsely."
Normally, when we think of swearing, we think of someone in surprise, or shock, or anger, saying, "Oh my God! Jesus Christ!" But swearing in the OT usually (?) is connected to making oaths. You find yourself in a situation with someone where it's not obvious whether or not you're telling the truth-- whether or not you can be trusted. In that situation, you might say something like this: "As God as my witness, I didn't steal your cow." Or, "I swear on God's name, I didn't do it." Or, "May God strike my family with sickness, and my fields with famine, if I'm lying to you."
When you bring God's name into a situation, you are inviting God to be the witness, and the one who guarantees the truthfulness of your words. You are also calling down God's judgment on yourself, if you're lying.
Now, the other part of oaths, is that most of the time, they'd be made in the marketplace. Any time you buy or sell something, you're taking a risk. Those of who buy off Facebook marketplace, in particular, understand this. If you buy used tires from someone, you're trusting that there's not some flaw in the tire that makes them trash. When you buy a used car from someone, you're trusting that they aren't hiding some huge flaw from you. The transmission isn't starting to fail. The engine doesn't overheat, when it's been running for 30 minutes. The car doesn't let water into the cabin, every time it rains. Even something like buying a bushel of wheat, can be tricky. Is the wheat from this year's crop, or is it 5 years old? Did the seller mix in old stuff with the new? Is there mold, or rot? Is there a small amount of chaff, deliberately mixed in? In the OT, I imagine that part of how you'd guarantee the quality of your wheat, and that you are acting in a trustworthy manner, would be to use an oath. I swear to you, in God's name, that this is a good bushel of wheat, free from disease and noxious weeds, from this year's crop. And you'd swear to me that the silver you're using to buy it ("silver" is "money" in the OT), is genuine silver, with a certain percentage of silver content, and not deliberately diluted with some cheaper metal. With every financial transaction, there's risk on both sides, and that risk is reduced, in theory, by making oaths.
Swearing falsely in God's name is often connected to stealing. And with both sins-- stealing, and swearing falsely-- it's often hard to tell when you're being harmed. It's hard to figure out who stole your bike. It's also hard to know when someone's lying to you. And both of those sins destroy the fabric of society, in very secret, hidden ways (again, 1 Timothy 5:24). If we are going to live in cities, close to each other, we need to be able to trust each other. We have to keep our hands to ourselves. We need to be honest. When that falls apart, everything falls apart.
So this flying curse scroll is a targeted, precision strike on the homes of two groups of people-- the thieves, and the ones who swear falsely. The curse will enter their houses. It will become the most unwelcome house guest of all time. It will spend the night. And it will do, in the same way that termites might spend the night in your house. The scroll will consume everything. The house will be destroyed, leaving nothing behind.
Can you picture this giant billboard doing all of this? It's like a huge drone that slips into a house, making itself at home. And it consumes your house down to the very foundation, leaving nothing behind.
Is this scary? Do you find yourself feeling nervous?
Maybe.
God sees all of our sins. He sees the sins we commit, including the ones where we very deliberately look both ways, and make sure no one is watching. We'd like to think, sometimes, that we get away with certain sins-- that God either doesn't notice, or doesn't really care. That we can do them, without consequence. But God knows. And the only questions, are these; How long God will be patient with us? How much time He will give us to repent? How long, until He sends a flying curse scroll?
If your lifestyle is built around secret sins, yeah, I think this is a terrifying passage. God's judgment, when it comes, is relentless. Your home is usually the safest place in the entire world for you. It's the place that your life is built out from, and based from. And God can very easily decide to take everything from you.
Some of us, perhaps, find ourselves being terrified by this idea. It's like a horror movie.
But overall, I think we are supposed to see Zechariah's vision as a message of hope, and encouragement.
The day will come, when the person who steals your bike will lose everything. God is sending out a curse on everyone who quietly steals your stuff, and everyone who cheats from you, and steals from you, by lies.
And what's the end result of this curse? God's land will become a place where the only ones left, are the people who respect property rights, and who deal with you in an honest, transparent, and straightforward way.
That's not the stuff of nightmares. That's a dream come true. The day will come, when things will get better. People will stop stealing your stuff. They'll stop trying to rip you off. The day will come, when everyone will be trustworthy.
So that's the first half of our vision. Let's start the second half, verses 5-8:
(5) and the angel speaking with me went out,
and he said to me,
"Lift, please, your eyes,
and see what [is] about to come/go out-- this one (feminine singular),
(6) and I said,
"What is it (feminine singular)?,
and he said,
"This [is] the ephah about to come/go out," [Deuteronomy 25:14; Proverbs 20:10; Ezekiel 45:10; Amos 8:5; Micah 6:10]
and he said,
"This is their ("their" is 3rd masculine plural) outward appearance [spring of water/eye/evil] in all the land,"
(7) and LOOK! The cover of lead was lifted up,
and this one woman [was] sitting/dwelling in the midst of the ephah,
(8) and he said,
"This is wickedness,"
and he pushed her to the middle of the ephah,
and he threw/cast the stone of the ephah to its mouth/opening,
Zechariah now sees something new-- an "ephah." At the risk of sounding like a math teacher, this is a unit of dry measure, by volume, not weight. Everywhere else in the OT, an ephah is probably about 22 liters-- about 5.8 gallons. So if you can picture 6 gallons of milk, shoved together into one container, you have an ephah. And you'd fill that ephah with grain. You'd store grain in an ephah, and you'd buy or sell it in that container. The really important thing about the ephah, is that it's closely connected to the marketplace. If you look at the translation handout, you'll see I put a bunch of OT references in it, connected to the ephah. You can look at them later, but basically, the ephah becomes a symbol for the marketplace as a whole.
When you go to the grocery store, and you pick out apples, part of that process normally is to go to the scale, and weigh out what you buy. Or if you're buying roast beef from the deli, it's always put on a scale, to see precisely how much you buy. An ephah functions like a scale. It's how you measure how much you're buying, and selling.
And it's really important to God that the ephah isn't tampered with.
So Zechariah sees this ephah coming or going out. It's moving, one way or another. He's then told that this ephah is "their" something. Does everyone see the "their." "THEIR something."
There's a ton of debate about what to do with the next word, but in some ways, the word "their" is the key to unlocking a huge chunk of this passage. Who is "their"?
The only group of people this can be, is the group of people who are thieves, and who swear falsely, from the last vision. ("Their" here is the most important reason to basically read Zechariah 5 as one long passage).
This ephah is "their" "something."
What is that something? If we follow the Hebrew text (the Masoretic text), the Hebrew word can mean "spring of water (Exodus 15:27; see Max Rogland), eye (Exodus 21:24; see NET Bible), or outward appearance (1 Samuel 16:7; see KJV)." The Greek OT, which translated the Hebrew (working off a different underlying Hebrew text, but with the complication that it's a translation), translates it as "evil" (see RSV, NIV). So when you look at English translations, you can see that very good scholars disagree about what to do with this. And it's hard to make a decision here, because Zechariah sees crazy visions. Weird things should be expected.
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The difference between a spring of water, and evil, in Hebrew, comes down to the difference in a single letter. If you visualize a lower case a, and a lower case d, that's basically the difference. One letter extends out a little farther (the little marks above and below the letters would've been added later). Van dere Mere: “eye” is strange here. The LXX and Syriac read ????? (“iniquity”) for the MT ????? (“eye”)."
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I think the Hebrew makes sense here, and there's no reason to go with the Greek OT (LXX). I think the most likely explanation of this verse, is that this ephah represents "their" outward, physical appearance. When these people, who swear falsely in God's name, and who steal, bring their ephah to the marketplace to sell goods, this is "their" appearance. They look like a typical, ordinary ephah. It's only when you look under the hood, that you become aware that inside that ephah is something incredibly wicked. It's like when you're on ebay, or amazon, buying a pair of name brand Nike shoes. You find this pair at an incredible price, and it's outward appearance looks exactly right. But it's only when you put them on, that you realize it's a cheap counterfeit. Or, I might be looking for a $400 set of cello strings for my daughter, and find a set on ebay for $200. The strings look perfect, and unused. But it's only when my daughter puts them on, and runs the bow across them, that I realize someone has defrauded me by creating cheap fakes.
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The second-most-likely option, is that of Max Rogland. He argues that "their" ephah is a spring of water.
Water is life, especially in the middle east. And there's this group of people whose life depends on this particular ephah. Their way of life is built around this ephah. And then, when the cover is lifted up, what we see is that their way of life is built around hidden wickedness.
I think translations that opt for the Greek (NIV, NRSV, RSV), really don't make that much sense. The idea is that it's only when the cover is lifted, that something unexpected is revealed. It's surprising, what's inside. And to say that their ephah is evil, and there's evil inside, doesn't seem very striking.
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So in the first half of the vision, we saw that there were these two groups of people, thieves, and people who swear deceptively. Those are the people who God's flying curse scroll is going to target.
What we see here, is how those people worked. They weren't stealing bikes from innocent seminary students. They were stealing in the marketplace, by defrauding people. They are the scammers, and the con artists.
When you look at these people, and what they are selling, they look like legitimate business people, offering a good product at a fair price. But when the angel shows you under the hood, you see the truth. There is wickedness hiding inside-- a type of evil sitting inside, that you don't want to let out.
In the marketplace, there are good ephahs, filled with 100% wheat. And there are ephahs filled with deceitful things. Filled with wickedness. If you were shopping in the market, you'd want to make sure you get the right one. It's like buying off amazon-- there are legitimate sellers, and there are people who give you the cheap knock-off version. This particular ephah is the knock-off, deceptive version.
So the contents are revealed-- the heavy cover is lifted up-- and you see, this is not the ephah you want. You don't even have to dig through the ephah to test it. There's something horribly wicked, sitting on the top.
When we lived in California, my wife opened up a container of oatmeal one day, and at the top of that oatmeal, were dozens and dozens of bugs. California is a nasty place, in many ways. Bugs are just a part of life. She opened it up, and saw something evil sitting on top. Lots of evil things, actually. She showed me, horrified. And we closed it back up again, immediately. You don't want those contents to get out, right? Seal that up, as fast as you can. Don't let that evil spread.
That's basically what the interpreting angel does here. But, what do you do next? Do you salvage the oatmeal?
Verse 9:
(9) and I lifted my eyes,
and I saw,
and LOOK! Two women going/coming out,
and the wind/spirit [was] in their wings,
and belonging to them [were] wings like the wings of a stork,
and they lifted up the ephah between the earth, and between the heavens,
(10) and I said to the angel speaking with me,
"Where [are] they taking the ephah?,"
(11) and he said to me,
"To build for it a house in the land of Shinar (Babylon),
that it may be established [hophal; Isaiah 16:5],
and that it may be set there upon its base.
This ephah, which is filled in part with wickedness, is removed from the land. It's then taken by two winged woman, who carry it away. They fly it to Babylon. There, they build a house for it, and this house sounds a lot like a temple. This ephah is given a permanent home there. It's set up, like you'd set things up for an idol or a god-- it's given a good, sturdy base. Babylon is the perfect place for idols, and God gives this wickedness the perfect home.
This picture here, of stealing becoming an idol that's worshipped, ties in beautifully to the NT. In Ephesians 5:5, Paul talks about how greed is a form of idolatry (Ephesians 5:5). Wealth can become something you worship. You frame your whole life around it. You serve it. You seek it. It becomes the thing you lean on, to get you through life.
One of the ways you can tell if you've become greedy, is when you become dishonest. Stealing, and cheating people financially, starts to look an acceptable shortcut to get ahead in life. You choose money over people. You choose to not care about hurting people. Your wallet is more important, than acting rightly toward them. When you find yourself lying and stealing to get ahead financially, you know that wealth has become your god. When you find yourself having to wrestle with what to do, when you have the chance to steal or cheat, you know that you're in danger of becoming an idolater. It's a weakness, a vulnerability.
This type of wickedness is something most appropriate for Babylon-- for every human kingdom built around greed, and chasing stuff. It's not appropriate for God's holy people. So in this second vision, Zechariah sees a vision of this type of wickedness being removed from the land, and given a new home. It's kind of like in big cities, people often really dislike squirrels. My dad always said, a squirrel is basically a rat with good PR. My old boss called them tree rats. Part of being a tree trimmer, was deliberately destroying every squirrel nest you found. Squirrels are cute, with their long, bushy tails, and the way they hop around. But squirrels are destructive monsters, who destroy just to spite to my wife. They sample tomato after tomato, just to spit it out. They dig through stuff.
What can you do to squirrels? In the city, you can't just shoot them. Neighbors don't want to see or hear a .22 or a BB gun, and city folk are often squeamish about killing stuff. So in big cities, people have squirrel relocation projects. You catch the squirrel, and then drive it across town, and dump it in the woods behind someone else's house. It becomes someone else's problem.
That's basically the picture here. God isn't completely removing wickedness from the entire world. But He's removing it from his people.
Is this picture scary?
My wife has relatives who bought a house in town, and the first time it rained, they ended up with a ton of water in their basement. The seller hadn't put that in the disclosure agreement. And when the relatives confronted the seller, the seller told them that they had a family member who was a lawyer, and good luck trying to sue them.
Would it be scary, having those types of people, and that type of behavior, removed from town, and sent far away? Would it be a bad thing, if every Facebook marketplace seller deserved 5 star reviews for being honest, and selling the items as described? Would it be a bad thing if you could bring $5,000 to someone's house to buy a car or a cello, and not worry that the person will pull out a gun and just take it from you?
I think it'd be fabulous to live in that kind of world. What God is showing Zechariah, is a message of hope. Right now, in their war-torn shell of Jerusalem, it's like the wild wild west. People are stealing from each other. They are ripping each other off in the marketplace. But the day is quickly coming, when God is going to free the land from all of those things, and those people. The flying curse scroll will ruin everyone who steals, and swears falsely, to rip people off. And the wickedness that's so common in the marketplace will be relocated, and given a new home.
So that's our passage. Let me give you two straightforward applications for you to take home. Ready?
(1) Celebrate when governments crack down on fraud. Rejoice on the day when governments do their job, and when thieves are caught. Ideally, God doesn't have to send out a flying curse scroll to target people who swear deceptively, who put their name on pieces of paper fraudulently, to steal money from people, or from the government. God prefers that we humans figure things out, and catch and punish wrongdoers ourselves. So, again, celebrate-- and you should celebrate that whether you lean Republican, or Democrat. Whether you lean libertarian, small government, or big government. Whether you love Trump, or despise him. Celebrate, when fraud is eliminated.
(2) Don't rip people off.
Whenever you're in the marketplace, buying or selling, be transparent. If you're selling a car, or a house, give full disclosure of all the problems you know about. The little things that have come to annoy you, the small flaws-- let them know. You don't need to take the car to a mechanic, and have them inspect it bumper to bumper, and give a 20 page summary. But if you know it leaks a quart of oil every 500 miles, or a window doesn't roll down, or there's a small fluid leak from the power steering... let them know. Make a list of all the things that you know are wrong. Be transparent. Hiding flaws, and defects, is a wicked thing to do.
When you do that, you might end up selling a house, or a car, for less money than you'd otherwise get. And that's where you might find yourself getting stuck. Right? Sometimes, you take your car to the mechanic to get the transmission flushed, and the mechanic finds tons of metal shavings in the transmission pan. Your transmission is shredding itself, and it's going to fail. BUT... at this very moment, it's still shifting perfectly. Outwardly, nothing seems wrong. You are the only one in this world, apart from your mechanic, who knows that a $5,000 or $10,000 repair is coming. Do you hide that evil, and sell your car as though it's fine? Or do you take that financial hit? Do you run the risk that no one will buy your horrible car?
Part of what it means to love your neighbor as yourself, is to be transparent in your financial dealings. God expects you to be honest, and act rightly ("righteously"), in the marketplace. If you're selling an ephah's worth of grain, you give an ephah's worth. You don't mix chaff into it. You don't figure out how to fluff it up like it's a box of cereal, so that it ends up being half-filled due to "shifting contents."
I think one of the trickiest things to figure out in life, is whether or not you struggle with greed. We spend most of our lives making money, spending money, saving money. Our credit cards are constantly in our hands. We think about stuff, constantly. How do you know when your heart has shifted in a bad direction? How do you know when you're becoming greedy?
What I found myself thinking this week, is that there are two really easy ways to tell if you have become greedy. The first, is when the time comes to tithe at church. Do you find it hard to write that dollar amount on the check? Do you find that's the slowest you write, the entire week-- and that you have strong emotions as you write?
The second way to tell if you're greedy, is how you act in the marketplace. Do you find yourself asking, "Can I use deception, to get more money than I otherwise would? Will the buyer see the oil leak? Will they think to ask if I've had the coolant flushed regularly? Will they realize, before they close on buying my house, that my roof leaks, and I get water in the basement every time it rains?" If you find yourself thinking, "Can I get away with this," understand, you're greedy. If you find yourself wrestling with this, and having that thought enter your mind even for a second, understand, you're wrestling with greed.
Let me say two things about this type of greed:
(1) This type of greed will be judged:
We see from this passage, that this type of behavior is a form/type of stealing, and it's a type of deceitful swearing. And we should expect that God will judge this sin, and He will judge those who commit these sins, sooner or later. He might destroy your house. He might remove you from his kingdom. However God chooses to punish this, just understand, God will not tolerate this forever. This is only scary, if we're committing these sins. If we aren't, this is fabulous good news. I'd love God to do this for our country right now. How great would it be, to buy and sell without worry. To know that what you're paying for, is what you get? And I look forward to the day when Jesus returns, and removes these sins, and these people, from the land. I expect that on the new earth, we will still work, and buy, and sell. But we will do so transparently, and honestly, in a way that pleases God, and loves God and people. That'd be fabulous.
So, this type of greed will be judged.
(2) This type of greed is unnecessary:
If we take a step back, and look at Zechariah as a whole, we've seen God repeatedly promise that He will bring prosperity to his people. The cities of Judah, and Jerusalem, will overflow with people, and animals. Life has been hard for God's people, but that's about to radically change.
But this prosperity that God has in mind, and that God's promised, will not come through stealing, and ripping people off. God will make sure there is plenty of money out there for you, without you having to resort to that.
I think we can take this as a promise from God to us, as well.
There are four things you should be doing, when it comes to work, and the marketplace:
(1) If you are seeking God, and God's kingdom, first in your life (Matthew 6:33),
(2) If you're tithing, and giving God what He's asked for financially (Malachi 3:6-12),
(3) If you're working hard, and earning a fair day's wage for a fair day's work (1 Thessalonians 4:9-12), and
(4) If you're treating people fairly in the marketplace (Zechariah 5), then you should expect God to bless you financially. I don't mean that God will make you rich. I'm not promising a million dollars in the bank, or 5 acres with a beautiful country house just outside of town. But God will make sure you lack nothing. He will take care of your every need. He will reward you for loving God, and loving people. The prosperity God has in mind for you, doesn't require you ripping people off. And the prosperity God has in mind for you, won't come if you're ripping people off.
So if you sit here this morning, knowing that you've ripped someone else, let me encourage you-- go to that person. Apologize. Compensate them for what you did. You stole from them, and you need to make things right.
And if that's not you, and you sit here, frustrated by the fraud and deceit and stealing, take courage: God will come in judgment against all those people eventually. One day, those types of sin will be removed from the land. One day, those people's life will be destroyed. One day, the marketplace will work, exactly as God wants.
Translation:
(1) and I again lifted up my eyes,
and I saw,
and LOOK! A flying scroll!,
(2) and he said to me,
"What [are] you seeing?,"
and I said,
"I [am] seeing a flying scroll.
Its length [is] 20 in cubits (roughly 30 feet?),
while its width [is] 10 cubits (roughly 15 feet?),"
(3) and he said to me,
"This [is] the curse about to come/go out upon the surface of all the land,
because everyone stealing from here like this has been unpunished.
(4) I will send it out-- utterance of Yahweh of Armies--
and/that it will enter the house of the thief and the house of the one swearing in my name for deception/emptiness,
and/that it will abide/spend the night in the midst of his house,
and/that it will consume it,
both its beams,
and its stones,
(5) and the angel speaking with me went out,
and he said to me,
"Lift, please, your eyes,
and see what [is] about to come/go out-- this one (feminine singular),
(6) and I said,
"What is it (feminine singular)?,
and he said,
"This [is] the ephah about to come/go out,"
and he said,
"This is their outward appearance in all the land,"
(7) and LOOK! The cover of lead was lifted up,
and this one woman [was] sitting/dwelling in the midst of the ephah,
(8) and he said,
"This is wickedness,"
and he pushed her to the middle of the ephah,
and he threw/cast the stone of the ephah to its mouth/opening,
(9) and I lifted my eyes,
and I saw,
and LOOK! Two women going/coming out,
and the wind/spirit [was] in their wings,
and belonging to them [were] wings like the wings of a stork,
and they lifted up the ephah between the earth, and between the heavens,
(10) and I said to the angel speaking with me,
"Where [are] they taking the ephah?,"
(11) and he said to me,
"To build for it a house in the land of Shinar (Babylon),
that it may be established [hophal; Isaiah 16:5],
and that it may be set there upon its base. [Ephesians 5:5]
