Zechariah 7:1-14
7 And in the fourth year of King Da·riʹus, the word of Jehovah came to Zech·a·riʹah+ on the fourth day of the ninth month, that is, the month of Chisʹlev.*
2 The people of Bethʹel sent Shar·eʹzer and Reʹgem-melʹech and his men to beg for the favor* of Jehovah,
3 saying to the priests of the house* of Jehovah of armies and to the prophets: “Should I weep in the fifth month+ and abstain from food, as I have done for so many years?”
4 The word of Jehovah of armies again came to me, saying:
5 “Say to all the people of the land and to the priests, ‘When you fasted and wailed in the fifth month and in the seventh month+ for 70 years,+ did you really fast for me?
6 And when you would eat and drink, were you not eating for yourselves and drinking for yourselves?
7 Should you not obey the words that Jehovah proclaimed through the former prophets,+ while Jerusalem and her surrounding cities were inhabited and at peace, and while the Negʹeb and the She·pheʹlah were inhabited?’ ”
8 The word of Jehovah again came to Zech·a·riʹah, saying:
9 “This is what Jehovah of armies says, ‘Judge with true justice,+ and deal with one another in loyal love+ and mercy.
10 Do not defraud the widow or the fatherless child,*+ the foreigner+ or the poor;+ and do not scheme evil against one another in your hearts.’+
11 But they kept refusing to pay attention,+ and they stubbornly turned their backs,+ and they stopped up their ears so as not to hear.+
12 They made their heart like a diamond*+ and would not obey the law* and the words that Jehovah of armies sent by his spirit through the former prophets.+ So there came great indignation from Jehovah of armies.”+
13 “ ‘Just as they did not listen when I* called,+ so I would not listen when they called,’+ says Jehovah of armies.
14 ‘And I scattered them with a storm wind throughout all the nations that they had not known,+ and the land was left desolate behind them, with no one passing through or returning;+ for they turned the desirable land into an object of horror.’ ”
