Prophecy against loftiness & pride

Prophecy against loftiness & pride
https://www.esv.org/Zechariah9:1–8
Week 17: 18/04/2023. Tue

Zechariah's message contains confrontation, correction but also comfort and peace. Learning from both is essential for your spiritual health today. Today's passage confronts the loftiness and pride of a few of such examples during Zechariah's time:

(1) The "wise" Tyre and Sidon (9:2). Seemingly they looked safe militarily with hardware and protection ("rampart", 9:3), could sit back and relax due to her financial prowess ("heaped up silver like dust", 9:3). Not only did they have plentiful silver, silver to them was only as available to them as dust. So is "gold like the mud on the streets" (9:3).

REFLECTION: When we have an above income compared to others in society or peers, do some of these same tones get incorporated into our speech and vocabulary?

(2) Other ancient cities were named from verses 5–8. Zechariah hinted that the fearless shall be afraid (9:5), possibly because their courage was built on less than solid stuffs. Confounded hope (9:5) exists because people put their hope on hopeless things.

(3) Pride was singled out for mention (9:6), but the end result would be that they will be "cut off" still. The bustling city transformed into "uninhabited" ones (9:5). Pride and bloodshed inflicted on others go hand in hand frequently. "Abominations from between its teeth" (9:7) are not far away.

REACTION: The LORD's reaction to these would be "I will encamp at my house as a guard, so that none shall march to and fro; no oppressor shall again march over them, for now I see with my own eyes" (9:8).

PRAYER: We pray for more people to escape the LORD's judgment. We pray that multitudes would embrace the LORD and find peace, security and blessings from the LORD. We pray for mental health for all.