Zechariah 7

¹ In the fourth year of King Darius, the word of Yahweh was addressed to Zechariah on the fourth day ofthe ninth month, the month of Chislev.

² Bethel sent Sharezer with a deputation to entreat Yahweh's favour

³ and to ask the priests in the Temple of Yahweh Sabaoth and the prophets, 'Ought I to go on mourningand fasting in the fifth month as I have been doing for so many years past?'

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

⁵ 'Say to al the people of the country and to the priests, "While you have been fasting and mourning inthe fifth and seventh months for the past seventy years, have you real y been fasting for my sake?

⁶ And when you were eating and drinking, were you not eating and drinking for your own sake?

⁷ Do you not know the words which Yahweh proclaimed through the prophets in the past, whenJerusalem was inhabited and secure, as were her surrounding towns, and when the Negeb and the lowlandswere inhabited?" ' (

⁸ The word of Yahweh was addressed to Zechariah as fol ows,

⁹ 'Yahweh Sabaoth says this.) He said, "Apply the law fairly, and show faithful love and compassion towards one another.

¹⁰ Do not oppress the widow and the orphan, the foreigner and the poor, and do not secretly plan evilagainst one another."

¹¹ But they would not listen; they turned a rebel ious 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 Sabaothhad sent -- by his spirit -- through the prophets in the past; and consequently the fury of Yahweh Sabaothovertook them.

¹³ And so, since when he cal ed they would not listen, "I would not listen when they called", says YahwehSabaoth,

¹⁴ "but scattered them among al the nations unknown to them. Hence, after they had gone, the countrywas deserted, and no one came or went. They had turned a land of delights into a desert." '