Zechariah 7

1 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.

And it came to pass in the fourth year of king Darius that the word of the Lord came unto Zechariah on the fourth day of the ninth month, in Kislev;

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

When they had sent unto Beth-el Sherezer and Regem-melech, and his men, to make entreaty before the Lord.

3 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?”

[And] to say unto the priests who were in the house of the Lord of hosts, and to the prophets, saying, Shall I weep in the fifth month with abstinence, as I have done already these many years?

4 The Lord Almighty sent a message to me saying,

Then came the word of the Lord of hosts unto me, saying,

5 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?

Say unto all the people of the land, and to the priests, as followeth, When ye fasted and mourned in the fifth and in the seventh [month], already these seventy years, did ye in anywise fast for me, yea, for me?

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

And if ye do eat, and if ye do drink, are ye not yourselves those that eat, and yourselves those that drink?

7 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?

Are not these the words which the Lord hath proclaimed by means of the former prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and in prosperity, with her cities round about her, when [men] inhabited the south, and the lowlands?

8 The Lord Almighty sent another message to me.

And the word of the Lord came unto Zechariah, saying,

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

Thus hath said the Lord of hosts, saying, Execute true justice, and show kindness and mercy every man to his brother;

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

And defraud not the widow, or the fatherless, the stranger, or the poor; and imagine not evil in your heart one against the other.

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

But they refused to listen, and turned away rebelliously the shoulder, and stopped their ears, so as not to hear;

12 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.

And their heart they rendered as an adamant, so as not to hear the law, and the words which the Lord of hosts had sent through his spirit, by means of the former prophets: wherefore came a great anger from the Lord of hosts.

13 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.

And it is come to pass, that as he proclaimed, and they would not hear: so had they to call, and I would not hear, saith the Lord of hosts;

14 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.

And I resolved to scatter them with a storm-wind among all the nations that they had not known; and the land was left desolate after them, without any one to pass through it forward or backward; and the pleasant land have they changed into a desert.