Zechariah 5

1 I looked again and saw a flying scroll.

Then I turned and lifted my eyes, and I saw, behold, a flying scroll!

2 “What do you see?” asked the angel. “I see a flying scroll,” I replied. “It's thirty feet long and fifteen feet wide.”

The angel said to me, “What do you see?” I answered, “I see a flying scroll, twenty cubits long and ten cubits wide.”

3 He told me, “This is the curse that is going out to all the world. Anyone who steals will be purged from society, according to one side of the scroll. Anyone who swears lies under oath will be purged from society, according to the other side of the scroll.”

Then he said to me, “This is the curse that goes out over the surface of the whole land. For every thief will be cut off according to what it says on the one side, and everyone who swears a false oath will be cut off according to what it says on the other side.

4 “I have sent the curse out and it will go into the house of the thief and into the house of the one who swears lies in my name, declares the Lord Almighty. The curse will remain in that house, and will destroy it, both the timbers and the stones.”

“I will send it out—this is the declaration of Yahweh of hosts—so it will enter into the house of the thief and into the house of the one that swears falsely by my name. It will remain in his house and consume its timber and stones.”

5 Then the angel I had been talking to came over to me and said, “Look. What do you see moving away?”

Then the angel who was speaking with me went out and said to me, “Raise your eyes and see what is coming!”

6 “What is it?” I asked. “What you see moving away is a barrel full of the sins of everyone in the country,” he replied.

I said, “What is it?” He said, “This is a basket containing an ephah that is coming. This is their iniquity in the whole land.”

7 Then the lead lid was lifted from the barrel and there was a woman sitting inside.

Then a lead covering was lifted off the basket and there was a woman under it sitting in it!

8 “She represents wickedness,” he said, and pushed her back inside, forcing the lead lid shut.

The angel said, “This is Wickedness!” He threw her back inside the basket, and he threw the lead cover over its opening.

9 I looked once more and saw two women flying towards me. Their wings looked like those of a stork. They picked up the barrel and flew away, high into the sky.

I lifted my eyes and saw two women coming toward me, and wind was in their wings—for they had wings like a stork's wings. They lifted up the basket between earth and heaven.

10 “Where are they taking it?” I asked the angel I was talking to.

So I said to the angel who was talking to me, “Where are they taking the basket?”

11 “They're taking it to the land of Babylon to build a house for it. When the house is ready, the barrel will be placed at its base.”

He said to me, “To build a temple in the land of Shinar for it, so that when the temple is ready, the basket will be set there on its prepared base.”