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 the reign of King Darius, on the fourth day of Chislev, the ninth month, the message of the Lord came to Zechariah.
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.
The city of Bethel had sent Sharezer and Regem-melech and their men, to entreat the favor of 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]?”
and to ask the priests of the house of the Lord of hosts, and the prophets “Should I continue to mourn in the fifth month, separating myself, as I have done for many years?”
4 Then the Commander of the armies of angels gave me a message.
Then this message of the Lord of hosts came to me:
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].
Tell all the people of the land and the priests, “When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and in the seventh month, for these seventy years, did you really fast for me?
6 And when they ate and drank, it was really [RHQ] to [benefit] themselves.
When you eat and when you drink, do you not eat for yourselves, and drink 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].”
Wasn’t it this which the Lord proclaimed by the earlier prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and prosperous, and her towns surrounding her and the Negreb and the Shephelah were inhabited?”
8 Yahweh gave another message to me, saying
The Lord gave this message to Zechariah:
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.
The Lord of hosts says, execute true judgments. Show kindness and mercy to each other.
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 orphan, the resident foreigner or the poor. Let none of you devise evil against another in your hearts.
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 listen, and turned a stubborn shoulder, and stopped their ears so they wouldn’t hear.
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 as hard as stone so they wouldn’t accept the teaching and the words that the Lord of hosts had sent by his spirit through the earlier prophets. Great was the anger of 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.
I called and they would not hear, so they call and I do not hear, 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).”
I scattered them by a whirlwind out among nations unknown to them. The land was left desolate behind them, with no one crossing or returning, for they made the pleasant land a desolation.
