Zechariah 7

1 And it comes to pass, in the fourth year of Darius the king, a word of YHWH has been to Zechariah, in the fourth of the ninth month, in Chisleu.

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 And Beth-El sends Sherezer and Regem-Melech, and its men, to appease the face of YHWH,

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

3 speaking to the priests who [are] at the house of YHWH of Hosts, and to the prophets, saying, “Do I weep in the fifth month—being separated—as I have done these so many 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 And there is a word of YHWH of Hosts to me, saying,

The Lord Almighty sent a message to me saying,

5 “Speak to all the people of the land, and to the priests, saying,

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 When you fasted with mourning in the fifth and in the seventh [months]—even these seventy years—did you keep the fast [to] Me? And when you eat, and when you drink, is it not you who are eating, and you who are drinking?

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

7 Are [these] not the words that YHWH proclaimed by the hand of the former prophets, in Jerusalem’s being inhabited, and [in] safety, and its cities around it, and the south and the plain—abiding?”

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 there is a word of YHWH to Zechariah, saying,

The Lord Almighty sent another message to me.

9 “Thus spoke YHWH of Hosts, saying, Judge [with] true judgment, And do kindness and mercy with one another.

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

10 And do not oppress widow, and fatherless, Sojourner, and poor, And you do not devise the calamity of one another in your heart.

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

11 And they refuse to attend, And they give a stubborn shoulder, And their ears are made heavy against hearing.

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

12 And their heart they have made adamant, Against hearing the Law, and the words, That YHWH of Hosts sent by His Spirit, By the hand of the former prophets, And there is great wrath from YHWH of Hosts.

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 comes to pass, as He called, And they have not listened, So they call, and I do not listen,” said YHWH of Hosts.

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 “And I toss them on all the nations, That they have not known, The land has been desolate behind them, Of any passing by and turning back, And they set a desirable land for a desolation!”

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.