1And in the fourth year of king Darius, on the fourth day of Chislev, the ninth month, the word of the LORD came to Zechariah. 2The people of Bethel had sent Sharezer and Regem-melech, together with their men, to the Temple of God to seek the favor of the LORD, 3And to ask the priests and the prophets who were in the Temple of the LORD Almighty, “Should we continue to weep (mourn) in the fifth month, separating ourselves, as we have done for so many years?”

4Then this word of the LORD Almighty came to me: 5“Ask all the people of the land, and their priests, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months for the past seventy years, was it really for Me that you fasted? 6And when you were eating and drinking, were you not eating and drinking for yourselves? 7Are these not the words that the LORD has proclaimed by the earlier prophets, when Jerusalem and its surrounding towns lived in peace and prosperity, when the Negev and the Shephelah (western foothills) were settles?’”

8And again this word of the LORD came to Zechariah, 9“This is what the LORD Almighty says, ‘Execute true justice, and show mercy and compassion to one another; 10And do not oppress the widow, the fatherless, the sojourner, or the poor; and let none of you plot evil in your heart against your brother.’ 11But they refused to listen, and stubbornly pulled away their shoulder, and stopped their ears, to keep from hearing. 12Indeed, they made their hearts as hard as flint, and would not hear the law, or the words which the LORD Almighty had sent by His Spirit through the earlier prophets; provoking great wrath from the LORD Almighty. 13Therefore, because they would not hear when I called; now when they call to Me, and I will not listen,” says the LORD Almighty: 14“But I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations where they were strangers. The land they left behind was so desolate that no one dared travel through it. This is why their pleasant land became a desert.”