Zechariah 7:1-14 NASB20 - Bible AI

¹In the fourth year of King Darius, the word of the LORD came to Zechariah on the fourth day of the ninth month, which is Chislev.

²Now the town of Bethel had sent Sharezer and Regemmelech and [49]their men to [50]seek the favor of the LORD,

³speaking to the priests who belong to the house of the LORD of armies, and to the prophets, saying, “Shall I weep in the fifth month [51]and fast, as I have done these many years?”

⁴Then the word of the LORD of armies came to me, saying,

⁵“Say to all the people of the land and to the priests, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months [52]these seventy years, was it actually for Me that you fasted?

⁶And when you eat and drink, [53]do you not eat for yourselves and drink for yourselves?

⁷Are these not the words which the LORD proclaimed by the former prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and carefree along with its cities around it, and the [54]Negev and the [55]foothills were inhabited?’ ”

⁸Then the word of the LORD came to Zechariah, saying,

⁹“This is what the LORD of armies has said: ‘Dispense true justice and practice kindness and compassion each to his brother;

¹⁰and do not oppress the widow or the [56]orphan, the stranger or the poor; and do not devise evil in your hearts against one another.’

¹¹But they refused to pay attention, and [57]turned a stubborn shoulder and [58]plugged their ears from hearing.

¹²They also made their hearts as hard as a diamond [59]so that they could not hear the Law and the words which the LORD of armies had sent by His Spirit through the former prophets; therefore great wrath came from the LORD of armies.

¹³And just as He called and they would not listen, so they called and I would not listen,” says the LORD of armies;

¹⁴“but I [60]scattered them with a storm wind among all the nations whom they did not know. So the land was desolated behind them [61]so that no one went back and forth, since they made the pleasant land desolate.”