Zechariah 5 · The Lantern

The Vision of the Flying Scroll

And I turned and lifted up my eyes and looked, and see — a flying scroll.

And he said to me, What do you see? And I said, I see a flying scroll; its length is twenty by the cubit and its breadth ten by the cubit.

And he said to me, This is the curse going out over the face of all the earth; for everyone who steals has gone unpunished on this side according to it, and everyone who swears has gone unpunished on that side according to it.

I have brought it out — the utterance of the LORD of hosts — and it will come into the house of the thief and into the house of the one swearing falsely by my name; and it will lodge in the midst of his house and destroy it, with its timbers and its stones.

The Vision of the Woman in a Basket

And the angel who was speaking with me went out and said to me, Lift up now your eyes and see what this is that is going out.

And I said, What is it? And he said, This is the ephah going out. And he said, This is their eye in all the earth.

And see — a talent of lead was lifted; and this was one woman sitting in the midst of the ephah.

"They went down into the deep like a stone." Why did "they go down into the deep like a stone"? Because they were not such "stones as those from which sons of Abraham could be raised up," but such as loved the deep and cherished the liquid element — that is, who seized the bitter and fleeting pleasure of present things.

For virtue is a light and buoyant thing, and all who live in her way "fly like clouds," as Isaiah says, "and as doves with their young ones"; but sin is a heavy affair, "sitting," as another of the prophets says, "upon a talent of lead." If, however, this reading of the history appears to any forced and inapplicable, and the miracle at the Red Sea does not present itself to him…

The deserts of each one of us are suspended in the balance, which a little weight either of good works or of degenerate conduct sways this way or that; if the evil preponderate, woe is me! if the good, pardon is at hand. For no man is free from sin; but where good preponderates, the evil flies up, is overshadowed, and covered.

And he said, This is Wickedness. And he threw her into the midst of the ephah and threw the lead stone on its mouth.

And I lifted up my eyes and saw, and see — two women going out, and wind was in their wings; and they had wings like the wings of the stork; and they lifted the ephah between the earth and the heavens.

And I said to the angel who was speaking with me, Where are they taking the ephah?

And he said to me, To build a house for it in the land of Shinar; and it will be established and set there on its base.

Zechariah5

The Vision of the Flying Scroll

The Vision of the Woman in a Basket