Zechariah 7

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

2Now Bethel sent Sharezer and Regem-melech and his men to seek the favor of Yahweh

3and to ask the priests of the house of Yahweh of Armies and the prophets, “Should I weep and fast in the fifth month, as I have done for so many years?”

4Then the word of Yahweh of Armies came to me:

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

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

7Are these not the words that Yahweh proclaimed through the earlier prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and at ease, along with the towns around it, and the Negev and the lowlands were inhabited?”

8The word of Yahweh came to Zechariah:

9This is what Yahweh of Armies says: Judge with true justice, and show kindness and compassion to one another.

10Do not oppress the widow or the orphan, the foreigner or the poor, and do not plot evil against one another in your hearts.

11But they refused to pay attention. They turned a stubborn shoulder and stopped up their ears so they would not hear.

12They made their hearts as hard as flint so they would not hear the law and the words that Yahweh of Armies had sent by his Spirit through the earlier prophets. So great anger came from Yahweh of Armies.

13Just as he called and they would not listen, so they called and I would not listen, says Yahweh of Armies.

14I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations they had not known. The land they left behind was desolate, with no one coming or going. So they made the pleasant land a desolation.