1 On that day a spring will well up for the family of David and for the
inhabitants of Jerusalem to cleanse themselves of sin and defilement.
Yahweh, God of hosts says:
2 On that day I will wipe out the names of idols from the land and never
again will they be mentioned.
3 I will also remove the prophets and their un clean spirits and expel them
from the land. If a prophet does prophesy, his parents: father and mother,
will say to him: ¡°You shall live no longer for you uttered lies in the name
of Yahweh.¡± His own father and mother will stab him when he prophesies.
4 On that day the prophets will be ashamed of their prophetical visions and
no longer wear a prophet¡¯s garment of hair in order to deceive.
5 Instead, each of them will say: ¡°I am not a prophet, I am a farmer, the
land has owned me since my youth.¡±
6 And if anyone says to him: ¡°What are these wounds on your hands?¡± He will
answer: ¡°With these I was wounded in my friend¡¯s house.¡±
Final persecution
7 ¡°Sword, awake and strike my shepherd, the man who is near to me!¡± says
Yahweh, God of hosts. ¡°Strike the shepherd and let the flock be scattered!¡±
Yahweh threatens, ¡°I will turn against the little ones,
8 and in all the land, two thirds shall be destroyed and one third left.
9 This third shall be cleansed by fire; I shall refine them as silver is
refined; I shall test them as gold is tested. They shall call upon my Name
and I will hear them. I will say, ¡®They are my peo ple,¡¯ and they shall say,
¡®Yahweh is my God.¡¯¡±
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Comments Zechariah, Chapter 13
• 13.1 In the final days an answer will be given to the thirst for
forgiveness, which the Bible itself aroused in the faithful (see Jn 7:37 and
20:22). The foun tain mentioned here is like the river coming from the
Temple (Ezk 47).
I will also remove the prophets and their unclean spirits. The days of the
great prophets are over and the author of these lines realizes that the only
prophets left are fortune-tellers, liars and charlatans. There is no room
for those in a community which has received all the truth that God can
reveal to us in the person of his Son.
• 7. Another text referring to the good shepherd, whom Yahweh strikes. This
means that the shepherd will be wounded and that Yahweh will use this event
for his plan of salvation. See what was said in Isaiah 66:8 about this form
of expression of the Jews.
Matthew remembers this place in 26:31.