Zechariah 8

What happens:

• God first talk about the restoration of Jerusalem and Zion. He explains that he will bring peace back to His holy city and things will be joyful. He points out though that this will only happen if the people are honest and peaceful with eachother.
• God then explains that the people must live in peace and be joyful at times of celebration that involve fasting for the Lord. He goes on to say that people from other nations will beg the Jews to be allowed to worship God.

Meaning:

• It's pretty confusing again. It shows how God longs to restore and not to destroy. The heart of God is that f longing to restore, but He can only do this if the people repent and choose Him alone. This is what He means by being truthful and peaceful.
• It is also interesting that God says that the other nations will want to praise Him because they would have been the ones who held the Jews in captivity previously! Quite a turn around of the books.

Stuff for us:

• We need to understand that God longs to restore us and heal us, not shame us and punish us. But He cannot be near sin and if we sin then we force ourselves away from God. If we repent and turn back to Him then He will forgive us and redeem us.
• It's also good to know how God deals with sin. At first He casts the people away because they sin and rebel against Him. They are held captive by others. For us this refers to sin. God then restores the people when they call out to God constantly and from real need. He then makes it so that the nations who were the captors beg the people to be allowed to worship God. For us this could mean that sin no longer rules us, but we rule sin. We have the control through Jesus Christ.