Zechariah 7

1In the fourth year of King Darius, the word of Yahweh came to Zechariah on the fourth day of the ninth month, Chislev.

2Bethel sent Sharezer and Regem-Melech and his men to entreat Yahweh's favor.

3saying to the priests who belong to the house of Yahweh of hosts and to the prophets, "Should I weep in the fifth month, abstaining, as I have done these many years?"

4Then the word of Yahweh of hosts came to me, saying,

5Say to all the people of the land and to the priests: When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and the seventh—these seventy years—did you really fast for me, for me?

6When you eat and when you drink, is it not you who eat and you who drink?

7Are these not the words that Yahweh declared through the former prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and at ease, her cities all around her, and the Negev and the lowland were settled?

8Yahweh's word came to Zechariah, saying,

9Thus says Yahweh of hosts: Render true justice, extend kindness and compassion, each man to his brother.

10Do not defraud the widow, the fatherless, the sojourner, or the afflicted, and do not devise evil against his brother in your hearts.

11They utterly refused to pay attention, turned a rebellious shoulder, and made their ears heavy so they would not hear.

12They made their hearts adamant so as not to hear the law and the words that Yahweh of Hosts sent by his Spirit by the hand of the former prophets, and great wrath came from Yahweh of Hosts.

13It happened that as he called and they did not listen, so they will call and I will not listen, says Yahweh of hosts.

14I scattered them with a tempest among all the nations they had not known, and the land lay desolate after them, with no one passing through or returning, because they made the pleasant land a desolation.