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A Call for Justice and Mercy
In the fourth year of King Darius, the word of the Lord came to Zechariah on the fourth day of the ninth month, which is Chislev.
In the fourth year of King Darius, the word of the Lord came to Zechariah on the fourth day of the ninth month, which is Chislev.
Now the people of Bethel had sent Sharezer and Regem-melech and their men to entreat the favor of the Lord,
saying to the priests of the house of the Lord of hosts and the prophets, “Should I weep and abstain in the fifth month, as I have done for so many years?”
Then the word of the Lord of hosts came to me:
The LORD of Heaven’s Armies sent me this message in reply:
“Say to all the people of the land and the priests, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth month and in the seventh, for these seventy years, was it for me that you fasted?
And when you eat and when you drink, do you not eat for yourselves and drink for yourselves?
And even now in your holy festivals, aren’t you eating and drinking just to please yourselves?
Were not these the words that the Lord proclaimed by the former prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and prosperous, with her cities around her, and the South and the lowland were inhabited?’”
And the word of the Lord came to Zechariah, saying,
Then this message came to Zechariah from the LORD:
“Thus says the Lord of hosts, Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another,
“This is what the LORD of Heaven’s Armies says: Judge fairly, and show mercy and kindness to one another.
do not oppress the widow, the fatherless, the sojourner, or the poor, and let none of you devise evil against another in your heart.”
Do not oppress widows, orphans, foreigners, and the poor. And do not scheme against each other.
“Your ancestors refused to listen to this message. They stubbornly turned away and put their fingers in their ears to keep from hearing.
They made their hearts diamond-hard lest they should hear the law and the words that the Lord of hosts had sent by his Spirit through the former prophets. Therefore great anger came from the Lord of hosts.
They made their hearts as hard as stone, so they could not hear the instructions or the messages that the LORD of Heaven’s Armies had sent them by his Spirit through the earlier prophets. That is why the LORD of Heaven’s Armies was so angry with them.
“Since they refused to listen when I called to them, I would not listen when they called to me, says the LORD of Heaven’s Armies.
“and I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations that they had not known. Thus the land they left was desolate, so that no one went to and fro, and the pleasant land was made desolate.”
As with a whirlwind, I scattered them among the distant nations, where they lived as strangers. Their land became so desolate that no one even traveled through it. They turned their pleasant land into a desert.”