Zechariah 5

5 ¹ Again I lifted my eyes and looked, and there before me was a flying scroll. ² He asked, "What do you see?" I answered, "I see a flying scroll, thirty feet long, fifteen feet wide."

³ Then he said to me, "This is the curse going out over the whole land. Everyone who steals will be purged away, by one side of it; everyone who swears falsely, purged away by the other."

⁴ I have sent it out, declares the Father of heaven's armies; it will enter the thief's house and the house of whoever swears falsely by my name, stay there, and consume it—both timbers and stones.

Wickedness Carried to Its Place

⁵ Then the angel talking with me came forward and said, "Now look up and see what this is going out."

⁶ I asked, "What is it?" He said, "The basket going out." Then, "This is their guilt across the whole land."

⁷ Suddenly, the lead cover was lifted, and there was a woman sitting inside the basket. ⁸ He said, "This is Wickedness." He pushed her back into the basket and forced the lead weight over its mouth.

⁹ I looked up and saw two women coming, wind in their wings—wings like a stork's—and they lifted the basket between earth and sky. ¹⁰ Then I said to the angel who was speaking with me, "Where are they taking the basket?"

¹¹ He said to me, "To build a house for it in the land of Shinar; and when it's ready, the basket will be set there on its base." ^a a v11 Shinar is the ancient name for Babylonia — the land of Israel's great exile.