2 Now the people of Bethel had sent Sharezer, Regem-melech, and their men to plead for the Lord’s favorw 3 by asking the priests who were at the house of the Lord of Armies as well as the prophets, “Should we mourn and fast in the fifth month as we have done these many years?”

4 Then the word of the Lord of Armies came to me: 5 “Ask all the people of the land and the priests: When you fasted and lamented in the fifth and in the seventh months for these seventy years, did you really fast for me?a