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Speak boastfully no longer,
    Do not let arrogance issue from your mouths.[a]
For an all-knowing God is the Lord,
    a God who weighs actions.(A)

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Footnotes

  1. 2:3 Speak…mouths: addressed to the enemies mentioned in v. 1.

Chapter 2

Second Vision: The Four Horns and the Four Smiths. I raised my eyes and looked and there were four horns.[a] Then I asked the angel who spoke with me, “What are those?” He answered, “Those are the horns that scattered[b] Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem.”(A)

Then the Lord showed me four workmen.[c] And I said, “What are these coming to do?” And the Lord said, “Those are the horns that scattered Judah, so that none could raise their heads any more;(B) and these have come to terrify them—to cut down the horns of the nations that raised their horns to scatter the land of Judah.”

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Footnotes

  1. 2:1 Four horns: symbols of the total political and military might of Judah’s imperial adversaries, probably representing Assyria, Babylonia, and Persia. The number four represents universality rather than any specific number of foes.
  2. 2:2 Scattered: sent part of the population into exile. This was standard imperial policy initiated in the ancient Near East by the Assyrians for dealing with a conquered state.
  3. 2:3 Four workmen: four agents of God’s power. The imagery follows that of four horns: the workers cut down, or make ineffectual, the horns, i.e., enemy.