Zechariah 7

1 And it came about in the fourth year of King Darius, that the word of the Lord came to Zechariah on the fourth day of the ninth month, the month Chislev.

The Lord sent a message to Zechariah on the fourth day of the ninth month, the month of Chislev. This was during the fourth year of king Darius' reign.

2 Now they of Beth-el had sent Sharezer and Regem-melech to make a request for grace from the Lord,

Bethel-sharezer sent Regem-melech and his men to ask for the Lord's blessing.

3 And to say to the priests of the house of the Lord of armies and to the prophets, Am I to go on weeping in the fifth month, separating myself as I have done in past years?

They were to ask the priests of the Temple of the Lord Almighty and the prophets, “Should I go on mourning and fasting in the fifth month, as I have done for so many years?”

4 Then the word of the Lord of armies came to me, saying

The Lord Almighty sent a message to me saying,

5 Say to all the people of the land and to the priests, When you went without food and gave yourselves to grief in the fifth and the seventh months for these seventy years, did you ever do it because of me?

Tell everyone in the land and the priests, when you fasted and mourned in the fifth month and the seventh month during these seventy years, was it really me you were fasting for?

6 And when you are feasting and drinking, are you not doing it only for yourselves?

And when you eat and drink, don't you eat and drink for yourselves?

7 Are not these the words which the Lord said to you by the earlier prophets, when Jerusalem was full of people and wealth, and the towns round about her and the South and the Lowland were peopled?

Isn't this what the Lord told you to do through the former prophets, when Jerusalem was prosperous and inhabited, and when people were living in the Negev and the Shephelah?

8 And the word of the Lord came to Zechariah, saying,

The Lord Almighty sent another message to me.

9 This is what the Lord of armies has said: Let your judging be upright and done in good faith, let every man have mercy and pity for his brother:

This is what the Lord says. Judge fairly and truthfully. Show mercy and kindness to one another.

10 Do not be hard on the widow, or the child without a father, on the man from a strange country, or on the poor; let there be no evil thought in your heart against your brother.

Don't exploit those who are widowed or fatherless, foreigners or the poor. Don't think up ways of mistreating one other.

11 But they would not give attention, turning their backs and stopping their ears from hearing;

But they refused to listen. They were obstinate, turning their backs and closing their ears.

12 And they made their hearts like the hardest stone, so that they might not give ear to the law and the words which the Lord of armies had said by the earlier prophets: and there came great wrath from the Lord of armies.

They made their minds unreceptive, as hard as stone. They refused to listen to the law or to what the Lord Almighty told them by his Spirit through the former prophets. That's why the Lord Almighty became very angry with them.

13 And it came about that as they would not give ear to his voice, so I would not give ear to their voice, says the Lord of armies:

So since they didn't listen when I called out to them, I wouldn't listen when they called out to me, says the Lord Almighty.

14 But with a storm-wind I sent them in flight among all the nations of whom they had no knowledge. So the land was waste after them, so that no man went through or came back: for they had made waste the desired land.

With the winds of a storm I scattered them among the nations where they lived as foreigners. The land they left became so desolate that no one even traveled through it. They turned the Promised Land into a desert.