Zechariah 5

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

³ Then he said to me, "This is the curse that goes out over the face of the whole land; for everyone who steals will be purged away according to one side of it, and everyone who swears falsely will be purged away according to the other side."

⁴ "I have sent it out, declares the Father of heaven's armies, and it will enter the house of the thief and the house of the one who swears falsely by my name; it will lodge in his house and consume it, both its timbers and its stones."

Wickedness Carried to Its Place

⁵ Then the angel who was speaking with me came forward and said to me, "Lift up your eyes now and see what this is that is going out."

⁶ I asked, "What is it?" And he said, "This is the basket that is going out." Then he said, "This is their iniquity throughout the whole land."

⁷ Suddenly, the lead cover was lifted, and there was a woman sitting inside the basket. ⁸ And he said, "This is Wickedness." Then he thrust her down into the basket and pushed the lead weight over its mouth.

⁹ Then I lifted my eyes and looked, and there before me were two women coming forward, with wind in their wings; they had wings like the wings of a stork, and they lifted up the basket between earth and heaven. ¹⁰ Then I said to the angel who was speaking with me, "Where are they taking the basket?"

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