Tough As Nails: DanielSample

Zechariah and Haggai wrote in the same year and for the same reason. Both were warning Israel not to become complacent. Ezra 9 deals with the same issue from a different angle. By intermarrying, Israelites were adopting the foreign gods of their foreign wives and were being led away from exclusive devotion to Yahweh. In case we fall back into old patterns, we need to make space in our lives for teachers like Ezra and prophets like Zechariah. Zechariah, by the way, has some of the most important Messianic prophecies in the Bible. It is sometimes hard to grapple with because he uses wild imagery and mystic metaphors. It is worth the time to understand his symbols. They are very real and practical.