Zechariah 7
1 And it came to pass in the fourth year of king Darius that the word of the Lord came unto Zechariah on the fourth day of the ninth month, in Kislev;
When Darius had been the emperor for almost four years, on December 7, Yahweh gave me [another] message.
2 When they had sent unto Beth-el Sherezer and Regem-melech, and his men, to make entreaty before the Lord.
The people of Bethel [city] sent two men, Sharezer and Regem-Melech, along with some other men, [to the temple of Yahweh, the Commander of the armies of angels, ] to request that Yahweh bless them.
3 [And] to say unto the priests who were in the house of the Lord of hosts, and to the prophets, saying, Shall I weep in the fifth month with abstinence, as I have done already these many years?
They also asked the priests at Yahweh’s temple and the prophets [this question]: “For many years, during the fifth month [and during the seventh month of each year], we have mourned and (fasted/abstained from eating food). Should we [continue to do that]?”
4 Then came the word of the Lord of hosts unto me, saying,
Then the Commander of the armies of angels gave me a message.
5 Say unto all the people of the land, and to the priests, as followeth, When ye fasted and mourned in the fifth and in the seventh [month], already these seventy years, did ye in anywise fast for me, yea, for me?
[He said], “Tell [RHQ] the priests and all the [other] people of Judah that during the past 70 years, when they mourned and fasted during the fifth and seventh months [of each year], it was not really [RHQ] me, [Yahweh], whom they were [honoring].
6 And if ye do eat, and if ye do drink, are ye not yourselves those that eat, and yourselves those that drink?
And when they ate and drank, it was really [RHQ] to [benefit] themselves.
7 Are not these the words which the Lord hath proclaimed by means of the former prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and in prosperity, with her cities round about her, when [men] inhabited the south, and the lowlands?
That is certainly [RHQ] what I continually told the former prophets to proclaim [to the people], when Jerusalem and the nearby towns were prosperous and filled with people, and people [also] lived in the desert area to the south and in the foothills [to the west].”
8 And the word of the Lord came unto Zechariah, saying,
Yahweh gave another message to me, saying
9 Thus hath said the Lord of hosts, saying, Execute true justice, and show kindness and mercy every man to his brother;
“[Tell the people that] this is what the Commander of the armies of angels says: ‘Do what is just/right, and act kindly and mercifully toward each other.
10 And defraud not the widow, or the fatherless, the stranger, or the poor; and imagine not evil in your heart one against the other.
Do not (oppress/treat cruelly) widows or orphans or foreigners or poor people. Do not even think about doing evil to anyone else.’”
11 But they refused to listen, and turned away rebelliously the shoulder, and stopped their ears, so as not to hear;
But the people refused to pay attention [to what Yahweh said]. They turned their backs [to him], and put their hands over their ears in order to not hear [what he said].
12 And their heart they rendered as an adamant, so as not to hear the law, and the words which the Lord of hosts had sent through his spirit, by means of the former prophets: wherefore came a great anger from the Lord of hosts.
They were very stubborn [IDM], and they would not listen to the laws [that God gave to Moses] or the messages that the Commander of the armies of angels told his Spirit to give to the prophets who were now dead. So the Commander of the armies of angels was very angry.
13 And it is come to pass, that as he proclaimed, and they would not hear: so had they to call, and I would not hear, saith the Lord of hosts;
The Commander of the armies of angels says, “When I called/spoke [to the people], they would not listen. So when they called/prayed [to me], I did not listen.
14 And I resolved to scatter them with a storm-wind among all the nations that they had not known; and the land was left desolate after them, without any one to pass through it forward or backward; and the pleasant land have they changed into a desert.
And I caused them to be scattered among many nations, where they were strangers. [It was as though] [MET] a whirlwind [picked them up and carried them away from their country]. The country/land that they [were forced to] leave was ruined, with the result that no one could [live there or even] travel through it. [It was previously] a delightful land, but they caused it to become (desolate/like a desert).”
