Zechariah 7

Revised Geneva Translation

7 And in the fourth year of King Darius, the Word of the LORD came to Zechariah, on the fourth day of the ninth month, during Chislev.

² For they had sent Sharezer and Regem-Melech and their men to the House of God, to pray before the LORD,

³ and to speak to the priests who were in the House of the LORD of Hosts, and to the Prophets, saying, “Should I weep during the fifth month and separate myself, as I have done these so many years?”

⁴ Then came the Word of the LORD of Hosts to me, saying:

⁵ “Speak to all the people of the land, and to the priests, and say, “When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months, for seventy years, did you fast for Me? For Me?

⁶ “And when you ate, and when you drank, did you not eat for yourselves, and drink for yourselves?

⁷ “Should you not hear the Words which the LORD has cried by the ministry of the former Prophets when Jerusalem was inhabited, and in prosperity, and its cities all around her, when the South and the plain were inhabited?”

⁸ And the Word of the LORD came to Zechariah, saying:

⁹ “Thus speaks the LORD of Hosts, saying: ‘Execute true judgment. And show mercy and compassion, every man to his brother.

¹⁰ ‘And do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the stranger or the poor. And let none of you imagine evil against his brother in your heart.

¹¹ ‘But they refused to listen. And pulled away the shoulder and stopped their ears, so that they would not hear.

¹² ‘Yea, they made their hearts as an adamant stone, lest they hear the Law and the Words which the LORD of Hosts sent in His Spirit, by the ministry of the former Prophets. Therefore, a great wrath came from the LORD of Hosts.

¹³ ‘Therefore, it happens at this time that as he cried and they would not hear, so they cried and I would not hear,’ says the LORD of Hosts.

¹⁴ ‘But I scattered them among all the nations whom they did not know. Thus, the land was desolate after them, so that no man passed through or returned. For they laid the pleasant land waste.’”