Zechariah 7
1 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.
When King Darius had been ruler for four years, on the fourth day of Kislev (which was the ninth month), the word of Yahweh came to Zechariah.
2 Bethel-sharezer sent Regem-melech and his men to ask for the Lord's blessing.
The people of Bethel had sent Sharezer and Regem-Melek and their men to beg before the face of Yahweh.
3 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?”
They spoke to the priests who were at the house of Yahweh of hosts and to the prophets; they said, “Should I mourn in the fifth month by means of a fast, as I have done these many years?”
4 The Lord Almighty sent a message to me saying,
So the word of Yahweh of hosts came to me, saying,
5 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?
“Speak to all the people of the land and to the priests and say, 'When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and in the seventh month for these seventy years, were you truly fasting for me?
6 And when you eat and drink, don't you eat and drink for yourselves?
When you ate and drank, did you not eat and drink for yourselves?
7 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?
Were these not the same words that Yahweh proclaimed by the mouth of the former prophets, when you still inhabited Jerusalem and the surrounding cities in prosperity and were settled in the Negev, and the foothills to the west?'”
8 The Lord Almighty sent another message to me.
The word of Yahweh came to Zechariah, saying,
9 This is what the Lord says. Judge fairly and truthfully. Show mercy and kindness to one another.
“Yahweh of hosts says this, 'Judge with true justice, covenant faithfulness, and mercy. Let each man do this for his brother.
10 Don't exploit those who are widowed or fatherless, foreigners or the poor. Don't think up ways of mistreating one other.
About the widow and orphan, the foreigner, and the poor person—do not oppress them, and let none of you plot any harm against another in your heart.'
11 But they refused to listen. They were obstinate, turning their backs and closing their ears.
But they refused to pay attention and set their shoulders stubbornly. They stopped up their ears so they would not hear.
12 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.
They made their hearts as hard as rock so they would not hear the law or the words of Yahweh of hosts. He had sent these messages to the people by his Spirit in earlier times, by the mouth of the prophets. But the people refused to listen, so Yahweh of hosts was very angry with them.
13 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.
It happened that when he called, they did not listen. In the same way,” said Yahweh of hosts, “they will call out to me, but I will not listen.
14 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.
For I will scatter them with a whirlwind to all the nations that they have not seen, and the land will be desolate after them. For no one will pass through the land or return to it since the people have made their delightful land into a wasteland.”
