Zechariah 7
Obedience Better than Fasting
Now in the fourth year of King Darius it came to pass that the word of the Lord came to Zechariah, on the fourth day of the ninth month, Chislev, 2 when the people sent Sherezer, with Regem-Melech and his men, to the house of God, to pray before the Lord, 3 and to aask the priests who were in the house of the Lord of hosts, and the prophets, saying, “Should I weep in bthe fifth month and fast as I have done for so many years?”
4 Then the word of the Lord of hosts came to me, saying, 5 “Say to all the people of the land, and to the priests: ‘When you afasted and mourned in the fifth band seventh months cduring those seventy years, did you really fast dfor Me—for Me? 6 aWhen you eat and when you drink, do you not eat and drink for yourselves? 7 Should you not have obeyed the words which the Lord proclaimed through the aformer prophets when Jerusalem and the cities around it were inhabited and prosperous, and bthe South and the Lowland were inhabited?’ ”
Disobedience Resulted in Captivity
8 Then the word of the Lord came to Zechariah, saying, 9 “Thus says the Lord of hosts:
a‘Execute true justice,
Show mercy and compassion
Everyone to his brother.
10 aDo not oppress the widow or the fatherless,
The alien or the poor.
bLet none of you plan evil in his heart
Against his brother.’
11 “But they refused to heed, ashrugged their shoulders, and bstopped their ears so that they could not hear. 12 Yes, they made their ahearts like flint, brefusing to hear the law and the words which the Lord of hosts had sent by His Spirit through the former prophets. cThus great wrath came from the Lord of hosts. 13 Therefore it happened, that just as He proclaimed and they would not hear, so athey called out and I would not listen,” says the Lord of hosts. 14 “But aI 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.” The Holy Bible, New King James Version, Copyright © 1982 Thomas Nelson.
All rights reserved.