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.

In the fourth year of King Darius, the LORD’s word came to Zechariah in the fourth day of the ninth month, the month of Chislev.

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

The people of Bethel sent Sharezer and Regem Melech and their men to entreat the LORD’s favour,

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?”

and to speak to the priests of the house of the LORD of Armies and to the prophets, saying, “Should I weep in the fifth month, separating myself, as I have done these so many years?”

4 The Lord Almighty sent a message to me saying,

Then the word of the LORD of Armies 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, saying, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and in the seventh month for these seventy years, did you at all fast to me, really to me?

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

When you eat and when you drink, don’t you eat for yourselves 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?

Aren’t these the words which the LORD proclaimed by the former prophets when Jerusalem was inhabited and in prosperity, and its cities around her, and the South and the lowland were inhabited?’”

8 The Lord Almighty sent another message to me.

The LORD’s word came to Zechariah, saying,

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

“Thus has the LORD of Armies spoken, saying, ‘Execute true judgement, and show kindness and compassion every man to 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.

Don’t oppress the widow, the fatherless, the foreigner, nor the poor; and let none of you devise evil against his brother in your heart.’

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

But they refused to listen, and turned their backs, and stopped their ears, that they might 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.

Yes, they made their hearts as hard as flint, lest they might hear the law and the words which the LORD of Armies had sent by his Spirit by the former prophets. Therefore great wrath came from the LORD of Armies.

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 has come to pass that, as he called and they refused to listen, so they will call and I will not listen,” said the LORD of Armies;

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.

“but I will scatter them with a whirlwind amongst all the nations which they have not known. Thus the land was desolate after them, so that no man passed through nor returned; for they made the pleasant land desolate.”