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.

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

The city of Bethel had sent Sharezer and Regem-melech and their men, to entreat the favour of 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 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 The Lord Almighty sent a message to me saying,

Then this message of the Lord of hosts came to me:

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?

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 you eat and drink, don't you eat and drink for yourselves?

When you eat and when you drink, do you not eat for yourselves, and drink for yourselves?

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?

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 The Lord Almighty sent another message to me.

The Lord gave this message to Zechariah:

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

The Lord of hosts says, execute true judgments. Show kindness and mercy to each other.

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

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

But they refused to listen, and turned a stubborn shoulder, and stopped their ears so they wouldn’t 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.

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 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.

I called and they would not hear, so they call and I do not hear, says 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.

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.