Obedience Better Than Fasting

7 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 1the people sent 2Sherezer, with Regem-Melech and his men, to 3the house of God, 4to 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 5fast 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 cfasted and mourned in the fifth dand seventh months eduring those seventy years, did you really fast ffor Me—for Me? 6 gWhen 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 hformer prophets when Jerusalem and the cities around it were inhabited and prosperous, and ithe 6South 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:

j‘Execute true justice,

Show 7mercy and compassion

Everyone to his brother.

10 kDo not oppress the widow or the fatherless,

The alien or the poor.

lLet none of you plan evil in his heart

Against his brother.’

11 But they refused to heed, mshrugged 8their shoulders, and nstopped 9their ears so that they could not hear. 12 Yes, they made their ohearts like flint, prefusing to hear the law and the words which the Lord of hosts had sent by His Spirit through the former prophets. qThus great wrath came from the Lord of hosts. 13 Therefore it happened, that just as He proclaimed and they would not hear, so rthey called out and I would not listen,” says the Lord of hosts. 14 “But sI 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.”