Zechariah 7

In the fourth year of King Darius, the word of the LORD came to Zechariah on the fourth day of the ninth month, Chislev. Bethel had sent Sharezer, Regem-melech, and his men to seek the LORD’s favor and to ask the priests of the house of the LORD of hosts and the prophets, “Should I weep in the fifth month and abstain, as I have done for so many years?” Then the word of the LORD of hosts came to me: “Say to all the people of the land and to the priests: ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months for these seventy years, was it really for me that you fasted—for me? And when you eat and drink, is it not for yourselves that you eat and drink? Are these not the words the LORD proclaimed through the former prophets when Jerusalem and its surrounding cities were inhabited and at peace, and the Negev and the lowland were inhabited?’” The word of the LORD came to Zechariah: “This is what the LORD of hosts says: Render true judgments, and show kindness and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow, the fatherless, the foreigner, or the poor. Do not plot evil against one another in your hearts. But they refused to pay attention. They turned a stubborn shoulder and made their ears dull so they would not hear. They made their hearts as hard as diamond so they would not hear the law or the words the LORD of hosts had sent by his Spirit through the former prophets. So great wrath came from the LORD of hosts. Just as he called and they did not listen, so they called and I did not listen,” says the LORD of hosts. “I scattered them like a whirlwind among all the nations they had not known. The land was left desolate behind them, with no one passing through or returning. They made the pleasant land a desolation.”

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