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Zechariah 7

Obedience Better than Fasting

Now in the fourth year of King Darius it came to pass that the word of the Lord came to Zechariah, on the fourth day of the ninth month, Chislev,

A Call to Justice and Mercy

On December 7a of the fourth year of King Darius’s reign, another message came to Zechariah from the LORD.

when [a]the people sent [b]Sherezer, with Regem-Melech and his men, to [c]the house of God, [d]to pray before the Lord,

The people of Bethel had sent Sharezer and Regemmelech,b along with their attendants, to seek the LORD’s favor.

and to ask the priests who were in the house of the Lord of hosts, and the prophets, saying, “Should I weep in the fifth month and [e]fast as I have done for so many years?”

They were to ask this question of the prophets and the priests at the Temple of the LORD of Heaven’s Armies: “Should we continue to mourn and fast each summer on the anniversary of the Temple’s destruction,c as we have done for so many years?”

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

The LORD of Heaven’s Armies sent me this message in reply:

“Say to all the people of the land, and to the priests: ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months during those seventy years, did you really fast for Me — for Me?

“Say to all your people and your priests, ‘During these seventy years of exile, when you fasted and mourned in the summer and in early autumn,d was it really for me that you were fasting?

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

And even now in your holy festivals, aren’t you eating and drinking just to please yourselves?

Should you not have obeyed the words which the Lord proclaimed through the former prophets when Jerusalem and the cities around it were inhabited and prosperous, and the [f]South and the Lowland were inhabited?’ ”

Isn’t this the same message the LORD proclaimed through the prophets in years past when Jerusalem and the towns of Judah were bustling with people, and the Negev and the foothills of Judahe were well populated?’”

Disobedience Resulted in Captivity

Then the word of the Lord came to Zechariah, saying,

Then this message came to Zechariah from the LORD:

“Thus says the Lord of hosts:
‘Execute true justice,
Show [g]mercy and compassion
Everyone to his brother.

“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 or the fatherless,
The alien or the poor.
Let none of you plan evil in his heart
Against his brother.’

Do not oppress widows, orphans, foreigners, and the poor. And do not scheme against each other.

“But they refused to heed, shrugged[h] their shoulders, and stopped[i] their ears so that they could not hear.

“Your ancestors refused to listen to this message. They stubbornly turned away and put their fingers in their ears to keep from hearing.

Yes, they made their hearts like flint, refusing to hear the law and the words which the Lord of hosts had sent by His Spirit through the former prophets. Thus great wrath 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.

Therefore it happened, that just as He proclaimed and they would not hear, so they called out and I would not listen,” says the Lord of hosts.

“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.

“But I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations which they had not known. Thus the land became desolate after them, so that no one passed through or returned; for they made the pleasant land 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.”

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