Zechariah 7

¹Now in the fourth year of King Darius it came to pass that the word of the Lord

²when the people sent Sherezer, with Regem-Melech and his men, to the house of God, to pray before the Lord

³and to ask the priests who were in the house of the Lord

⁴Then the word of the Lord

⁵“Say to all the people of the land, and to the priests: ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months during those seventy years, did you really fast for Me—for Me?

⁶When you eat and when you drink, do you not eat and drink for yourselves?

⁷Should you not have obeyed the words which the Lord

⁸Then the word of the Lord

⁹“Thus says the Lord ‘Execute true justice, Show mercy and compassion Everyone to his brother.

¹⁰Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, The alien or the poor. Let none of you plan evil in his heart Against his brother.’

¹¹“But they refused to heed, shrugged their shoulders, and stopped their ears so that they could not hear.

¹²Yes, they made their hearts like flint, refusing to hear the law and the words which the Lord

¹³Therefore it happened, that just as He proclaimed and they would not hear, so they called out and I would not listen,” says the Lord

¹⁴“But I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations which they had not known. Thus the land became desolate after them, so that no one passed through or returned; for they made the pleasant land desolate.”