Zechariah Chapter 7
1 The Fourth Day, Ninth Month (Chislev), Fourth Year of King Darius
A Message from Yahveh to Zechariah
A Call for Justice and Mercy, Not Fasting
2 The people in Bethel had sent Sharezer, Regem-melech, and their men to ask for Yahveh’s blessing. 3 They spoke to the priests in Yahveh’s Temple and to the prophets,
“Should we keep mourning and fasting in the fifth month like we’ve done all these years?”
4 A Message from Yahveh to Me
5 “Tell the priests and people in the land, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months those 70 years, were you really fasting for me? 6 And now when you eat and drink, aren’t you eating and drinking for yourselves? 7 Isn’t that the same message Yahveh delivered by the former prophets to the people in Jerusalem when it and its towns were prospering, and people were living in the Negev and western foothills?’”
Zech 7:1-7
8 A Message from Yahveh to Zechariah
9 “Yahveh of Hosts says, ‘Judge fairly, practice kindness and mercy with each other. 10 Don’t oppress widows and orphans, foreigners or poor people. Don’t plot against one another.’ 11 But your ancestors refused to pay attention, turned a stubborn shoulder, and covered their ears. 12 They hardened their hearts like flint so they couldn’t hear the Law and what Yahveh had sent by his Spirit through the former prophets. That’s why he was so angry with them. 13 Just as he called and they wouldn’t listen, so they called and he wouldn’t listen. 14 With a tornado he scattered them throughout foreign nations. The land they left lay so desolate nobody traveled through it. They’d turned their pleasant land into a wasteland.”
Zech 7:8-14