Zechariah 7

1 When Darius had been the emperor for almost four years, on December 7, Yahweh gave me [another] message.

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.

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.

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

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]?”

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?”

4 Then the Commander of the armies of angels gave me a message.

The Lord Almighty sent a message to me saying,

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 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?

6 And when they ate and drank, it was really [RHQ] to [benefit] themselves.

And when you eat and drink, don't you eat 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].”

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?

8 Yahweh gave another message to me, saying

The Lord Almighty sent another message to me.

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.

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

10 Do not (oppress/treat cruelly) widows or orphans or foreigners or poor people. Do not even think about doing evil to anyone else.’”

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

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. They were obstinate, turning their backs and closing their ears.

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 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.

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.

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.

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).”

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.