Zechariah 7

¹ In the fourth year of King Darius (the word of Yahweh was addressed to Zechariah), on the fourth day of the ninth month[*a] (the month of Chislev),

² Bethel sent Sharezer and his men to entreat the favour of Yahweh

³ and to say to the priests in the Temple of Yahweh Sabaoth, and to his prophets, ‘Ought I to go on mourning and fasting in the fifth month as I have been doing for so many years past?'[*b]

⁴ Then the word of Yahweh Sabaoth was addressed to me as follows,

⁵ ‘Say to all the people of the country, and to the priests, “While you have been fasting and mourning in the fifth and seventh months for the past seventy years, was it for my sake you fasted so rigorously?

⁶ And when you were eating and drinking, were not you the eaters and you the drinkers?

⁷ Do you not know the words which Yahweh proclaimed through the prophets in the past, when Jerusalem was inhabited and secure, with her surrounding towns, and when the Negeb and the Lowlands were inhabited?

⁸ (The word of Yahweh was addressed to Zechariah as follows:

⁹ Yahweh Sabaoth says this.) He said: Apply the law fairly, and practise kindness and compassion towards each other.

¹⁰ Do not oppress the widow and the orphan, the settler and the poor man, and do not secretly plan evil against one another.

¹¹ But they would not pay attention; they turned a petulant shoulder; they stopped their ears rather than hear;

¹² they made their hearts adamant rather than listen to the teaching and the words that Yahweh Sabaoth had sent by his spirit through the prophets in the past. This aroused great anger on the part of Yahweh Sabaoth.

¹³ And this is what happened, since he kept calling them and they would not listen (similarly they will call and I shall not listen, says Yahweh Sabaoth):

¹⁴ he scattered them throughout nations unknown to them; hence the country was reduced to desolation behind them, and no one came or went. They turned a land of delights into a desert.”‘