Therefore, Yahweh, Commander of Angel Armies, says: “Listen! I will refine my dear people by fire and test them because of what they have done. I have no other choice.
And the Lord has washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion and cleansed the bloodstains of Jerusalem by a Spirit of justice and by a Spirit of burning.
As silver is refined in the smelter, so you will be melted down inside the city, and you will understand and recognize that I, Yahweh, have vented my fury against you.’ ”
I will purge out the rebels from among you, those who sin against me. I will remove them from the land where they are exiled, but they will not enter the land of Israel. Then you will know that I am Yahweh.
Though the bellows blow fiercely, yet the smelter smelts to no avail. Fire melts and burns away the lead, but my refining fire fails to separate the dross of their wickedness.
He comes with a winnowing fork in his hands and comes to his threshing floor to sift what is worthless from what is pure. And he is ready to sweep out his threshing floor and gather his wheat into his granary, but the straw he will burn up with a fire that can’t be extinguished!”
Just as the metalsmith collects silver, bronze, iron, lead, and tin in the furnace, and the fire is fanned underneath to melt them down, so I will collect you there and melt you down in my furious anger.
By the mercy of Yahweh the guilt of Jacob will be forgiven. Yet the full proof of their forgiveness will be when they crush all the altars to false gods and make them into chalkstones, crushed to pieces, with neither cultic poles nor incense altars still standing.
Therefore, I, Lord Yahweh, say to the people of Jerusalem, ‘Since you have all become worthless dross, leftover metal, I will collect you inside Jerusalem.