This verse continues the same topic, but formally begins a new paragraph within the whole unit.

For Ho! see the previous verse.

Escape to Zion: There is no preposition to in Hebrew. Revised Standard Version understands the Hebrew word Zion to be an accusative of direction (see Thomas), meaning “toward Zion,” that is, Jerusalem. This has the support of the Septuagint and some other modern versions (Moffatt, New American Bible, New Revised Standard Version, New Living Translation, Contemporary English Version, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch). Good News Translation follows this interpretation with the words “return to Jerusalem,” but indicates who is addressed by adding “you exiles.” However, the majority of scholars take Zion as a vocative here, a form of address referring to the people of Israel living in exile (Vulgate, New Jerusalem Bible, Revised English Bible, New International Version, New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh, Beck; compare Isa 51.16). This view may seem to overload the sentence with vocatives, but it is preferable for syntactic reasons (that is, the patterns of Hebrew usage in the sentence). The interpretation recommended is to take Zion as standing for the LORD’s people, and being in apposition to the words you who dwell with the daughter of Babylon. This is expressed well in New English Bible and Revised English Bible, for instance, as “escape, you people of Zion who live in Babylon.” If the name Zion can be retained without causing misunderstanding, it is best to keep it. But if there is any danger of confusion, it can be changed to “Jerusalem.” Since few of the exiles living in Babylon had ever been in Jerusalem, it will be better in some languages to indicate that Jerusalem had been the home of their ancestors, and say, “you exiles who originated in Jerusalem.”

You who dwell with the daughter of Babylon: These words make it clear that the sentence is addressed to those Jews still living in exile. The daughter of Babylon is a poetic way of referring to the city itself. Good News Translation takes the city to stand for the region of which it was the center, and translates “Babylonia.” The verse may also be rendered “But now, you people of Zion [or, Jerusalem] who were taken captive to Babylonia, escape from that country.” In languages that use auxiliary verbs indicating the direction of the motion (namely toward Jerusalem), translators must say, for example, “But now, you people of Zion [or, Jerusalem] who were taken captive [go] to Babylon, escape [come] from there and return [come].”

Quoted with permission from Clark, David J. & Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Zechariah. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2002. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .