| New Living Translation | NET Bible |
| 1On December 7 of the fourth year of King Darius’s reign, another message came to Zechariah from the LORD. | 1In King Darius' fourth year, on the fourth day of Kislev, the ninth month, the word of the LORD came to Zechariah. |
| 2The people of Bethel had sent Sharezer and Regemmelech, along with their attendants, to seek the LORD’s favor. | 2Now the people of Bethel had sent Sharezer and Regem-Melech and their companions to seek the LORD's favor |
| 3They were to ask this question of the prophets and the priests at the Temple of the LORD of Heaven’s Armies: “Should we continue to mourn and fast each summer on the anniversary of the Temple’s destruction, as we have done for so many years?” | 3by asking both the priests of the temple of the LORD who rules over all and the prophets, "Should we weep in the fifth month, fasting as we have done over the years?" |
| 4The LORD of Heaven’s Armies sent me this message in reply: | 4The word of the LORD who rules over all then came to me, |
| 5“Say to all your people and your priests, ‘During these seventy years of exile, when you fasted and mourned in the summer and in early autumn, was it really for me that you were fasting? | 5"Speak to all the people and priests of the land as follows: 'When you fasted and lamented in the fifth and seventh months through all these seventy years, did you truly fast for me--for me, indeed? |
| 6And even now in your holy festivals, aren’t you eating and drinking just to please yourselves? | 6And now when you eat and drink, are you not doing so for yourselves?'" |
| 7Isn’t this the same message the LORD proclaimed through the prophets in years past when Jerusalem and the towns of Judah were bustling with people, and the Negev and the foothills of Judah were well populated?’” | 7Should you not have obeyed the words that the LORD cried out through the former prophets when Jerusalem was peacefully inhabited and her surrounding cities, the Negev, and the Shephelah were also populated? |
| 8Then this message came to Zechariah from the LORD: | 8Again the word of the LORD came to Zechariah: |
| 9“This is what the LORD of Heaven’s Armies says: Judge fairly, and show mercy and kindness to one another. | 9"The LORD who rules over all said, 'Exercise true judgment and show brotherhood and compassion to each other. |
| 10Do not oppress widows, orphans, foreigners, and the poor. And do not scheme against each other. | 10You must not oppress the widow, the orphan, the foreigner, or the poor, nor should anyone secretly plot evil against his fellow human being.' |
| 11“Your ancestors refused to listen to this message. They stubbornly turned away and put their fingers in their ears to keep from hearing. | 11"But they refused to pay attention, turning away stubbornly and stopping their ears so they could not hear. |
| 12They made their hearts as hard as stone, so they could not hear the instructions or the messages that the LORD of Heaven’s Armies had sent them by his Spirit through the earlier prophets. That is why the LORD of Heaven’s Armies was so angry with them. | 12Indeed, they made their heart as hard as diamond, so that they could not obey the Torah and the other words the LORD who rules over all had sent by his Spirit through the former prophets. Therefore, the LORD who rules over all had poured out great wrath. |
| 13“Since they refused to listen when I called to them, I would not listen when they called to me, says the LORD of Heaven’s Armies. | 13"'It then came about that just as I cried out, but they would not obey, so they will cry out, but I will not listen,' the LORD LORD who rules over all had said. |
| 14As with a whirlwind, I scattered them among the distant nations, where they lived as strangers. Their land became so desolate that no one even traveled through it. They turned their pleasant land into a desert.” | 14Rather, I will sweep them away in a storm into all the nations they are not familiar with.' Thus the land had become desolate because of them, with no one crossing through or returning, for they had made the fruitful land a waste." |
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