I am now hosting my Bible study at a webpage on my website. This thread will no longer be updated until I receive a PM from someone interested in participating.
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Welcome. For the background to this thread, please see my thread in Let the Fire Fall. At the moment I'm currently reading the New Jerusalem Bible, and the New American Bible for additional footnotes and the deuterocanonical books (the ones Protestants omit.)

I've been reading miscellaneous books; I think I should refresh myself on the Gospels. And, since I've always heard from Matthew and Mark, why not start with John and work my way backward?

So far I've read -- and this list doesn't include everything:


Questions:
  • Zechariah 8.10-12:
    Quote:
    For before those days there were no wages for men, or hire for beasts; those who came and went had no security from the enemy, for I set every man against his neighbor.
    But now I will not deal with the remnant of this people as in former days, says the LORD of hosts,
    for it is the seedtime of peace: the vine shall yield its fruit, the land shall bear its crops, and the heavens shall give their dew; all these things I will have the remnant of the people possess."
    Why would God do that, if God does not change, is just, and teaches love and forgiveness?
  • Zechariah 11.6:
    Quote:
    (Nor shall I spare the inhabitants of the earth any more, says the LORD. Yes, I will deliver each of them into the power of his neighbor, or into the power of his king; they shall crush the earth, and I will not deliver it out of their power.)
    Um ... what? ... and so on through the remainder of the chapter. I don't understand it at all.
  • Zechariah 13.7:
    Quote:
    Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, against the man who is my associate, says the LORD of hosts. Strike the shepherd that the sheep may be dispersed, and I will turn my hand against the little ones.
    Zechariah makes little sense to me as it is ... The footnote explains this verse as a prophecy of Christ's arrest and death, and the resulting scattering of the Jews historically. But what does the last part of that verse mean?