The Monday after the Twentieth Sunday after Trinity Sunday
Posted on November 3, 2025 by under
Scripture: Zechariah 1:1-16 (NKJV)
1:1 In the eighth month of the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came to Zechariah the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo the prophet, saying, 2 “The Lord has been very angry with your fathers. 3 Therefore say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts: “Return to Me,” says the Lord of hosts, “and I will return to you,” says the Lord of hosts. 4 “Do not be like your fathers, to whom the former prophets preached, saying, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts: “Turn now from your evil ways and your evil deeds.”’ But they did not hear nor heed Me,” says the Lord.
5 “Your fathers, where are they? And the prophets, do they live forever?
6 “Yet surely My words and My statutes, which I commanded My servants the prophets, did they not overtake your fathers? So they returned and said: ‘Just as the Lord of hosts determined to do to us, according to our ways and according to our deeds, so He has dealt with us.’”’”
7 On the twenty-fourth day of the eleventh month, which is the month Shebat, in the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came to Zechariah the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo the prophet: 8 I saw by night, and behold, a man riding on a red horse, and it stood among the myrtle trees in the hollow; and behind him were horses: red, sorrel, and white. 9 Then I said, “My lord, what are these?” So the angel who talked with me said to me, “I will show you what they are.”
10 And the man who stood among the myrtle trees answered and said, “These are the ones whom the Lord has sent to walk to and fro throughout the earth.”
11 So they answered the Angel of the Lord, who stood among the myrtle trees, and said, “We have walked to and fro throughout the earth, and behold, all the earth is resting quietly.”
12 Then the Angel of the Lord answered and said, “O Lord of hosts, how long will You not have mercy on Jerusalem and on the cities of Judah, against which You were angry these seventy years?”
13 And the Lord answered the angel who talked to me, with good and comforting words. 14 So the angel who spoke with me said to me, “Proclaim, saying, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts:
“I am zealous for Jerusalem and for Zion with great zeal.
15 “I am exceedingly angry with the nations at ease; For I was a little angry, and they helped—but with evil intent.”
16 ‘Therefore thus says the Lord:
“I am returning to Jerusalem with mercy; My house shall be built in it,” says the Lord of hosts, “And a surveyor’s line shall be stretched out over Jerusalem.”’”
Devotion
The Lord’s zeal declared here is exactly that in Sunday’s Gospel (Matt. 22:1–14). It is zeal to have mercy, and to have that mercy received, along with every blessing it conveys. He comes to those whom He had chosen as the bearers of the Seed, the Descendant promised to Eve as ‘Crusher of the Serpent’s Head’. The Promised One’s coming was to be through the line of Jacob’s son, Judah, through his descendant, King David. Yet, that line of kings most often led the people away from the promise, instead exalting the desires of the flesh.
The kingdom of Judah was to be the visible home of God’s merciful reign on earth, so its being carried off into exile should have stirred the nations to ask why God had appeared to abandon His people. Instead, they contentedly went on in their sins and idolatry, while Judah suffered from growing despair, not trusting the Lord’s purpose in their captivity. The Lord calls the remnant of His people not to act like their fathers, who took their status before Him for granted and left Him shamed before the nations by their evil conduct. He desires not only to bring them back to their homeland, but to His feast. There He not only invites them, but provides everything they need to attend, even replacing their ragged garments of sin with the righteousness of God the Son, so that they may fittingly eat and rejoice.
Collect: Grant, we beseech Thee, Merciful Lord, to Thy faithful people pardon and peace, that they may be cleansed from all their sins, and serve Thee with a quiet mind; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever One God, world without end. Amen.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
