Zechariah 5

¹ Again I raised my eyes, and this is what I saw: a flying scroll.

² The angel who was talking to me said, ‘What can you see?’ I replied, ‘I can see a flying scroll; it is twenty cubits long and ten cubits broad’.

³ He then said to me, ‘This is the Curse sweeping across the face of the whole country. According to what it says, every thief will be banished; according to what it says, everyone who swears falsely by my name will be banished.

⁴ I am going to let it loose – it is Yahweh Sabaoth who speaks – to enter the house of the thief and the house of anyone who swears falsely by my name, to settle in his house and to consume it, timber, stone and all.’

⁵ The angel who was talking to me came forward and said to me, ‘Raise your eyes, and see what this is, moving forward’.

⁶ I said, ‘What is it?’ He said, ‘This is a bushel moving forward’. He went on, ‘This is their iniquity throughout the country’.

⁷ At this, a disc of lead was raised, and I saw a Woman sitting inside the bushel.

⁸ He said, ‘This is Wickedness’. And he forced her back into the bushel and closed its mouth with the mass of lead.

⁹ I raised my eyes, and this is what I saw: two women appearing. The wind caught their wings – they had wings like a stork’s; they raised the bushel midway between earth and heaven.

¹⁰ I then said to the angel who was talking to me, ‘Where are they taking the bushel?’

¹¹ He replied, ‘They mean to build a temple for it in the land of Shinar, and to make a plinth on which to place it’.[*a]