Zechariah 7

1 When Darius had been the emperor for almost four years, on December 7, Yahweh gave me [another] message.

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

2 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.

Now the people of Bethel had sent Sharezer and Regem-melech, along with their men, to plead before the LORD

3 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]?”

by asking the priests of the house of the LORD of Hosts, as well as the prophets, “Should I weep and fast in the fifth month, as I have done these many years?”

4 Then the Commander of the armies of angels gave me a message.

Then the word of the LORD of Hosts came to me, saying,

5 [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].

“Ask all the people of the land and the priests, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months for these seventy years, was it really for Me that you fasted?

6 And when they ate and drank, it was really [RHQ] to [benefit] themselves.

And when you were eating and drinking, were you not doing so simply for yourselves?

7 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].”

Are these not the words that the LORD proclaimed through the earlier prophets, when Jerusalem and its surrounding towns were populous and prosperous, and the Negev and the foothills were inhabited?’”

8 Yahweh gave another message to me, saying

Then the word of the LORD came to Zechariah, saying,

9 “[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.

“This is what the LORD of Hosts says: ‘Administer true justice. Show loving devotion and compassion to one another.

10 Do not (oppress/treat cruelly) widows or orphans or foreigners or poor people. Do not even think about doing evil to anyone else.’”

Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor. And do not plot evil in your hearts against one another.’

11 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].

But they refused to pay attention and turned a stubborn shoulder; they stopped up their ears from hearing.

12 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.

They made their hearts like flint and would not listen to the law or to the words that the LORD of Hosts had sent by His Spirit through the earlier prophets. Therefore great anger came from the LORD of Hosts.

13 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.

And just as I had called and they would not listen, so when they called I would not listen, says the LORD of Hosts.

14 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).”

But I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations that they had not known, and the land was left desolate behind them so that no one could come or go. Thus they turned the pleasant land into a desolation.”