Zechariah 7

Chapter 7

Hearts like Flint

¹In the fourth year of King Darius, the word of the Lord came to Zechariah on the fourth day of the ninth month, which is ^aChislev.

²Now the town of Bethel had sent Sharezer and Regemmelech and ¹their men to ^2aseek the favor of the Lord,

³speaking to the ^apriests who belong to the house of the Lord of hosts, and to the prophets, saying, “Shall I weep in the ^bfifth month ¹and abstain, as I have done these many years?”

⁴Then 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 fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months ¹these ^aseventy years, was it actually for ^bMe that you fasted?

⁶‘When you eat and drink, ¹do you not eat for yourselves and do you not drink for yourselves?

⁷‘Are not these the words which the Lord ^aproclaimed by the former prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and ^1bprosperous along with its cities around it, and the ^2cNegev and the ³foothills were inhabited?’ ”

⁸Then the word of the Lord came to Zechariah saying,

⁹“Thus has the Lord of hosts said, ‘^aDispense true justice and practice ^bkindness and compassion each to his brother;

¹⁰and ^ado not oppress the widow or the ¹orphan, the ²stranger or the poor; and do ^bnot devise evil in your hearts against one another.’

¹¹“But they ^arefused to pay attention and ^1bturned a stubborn shoulder and ^2cstopped their ears from hearing.

¹²“They made their ^ahearts like ^1bflint ²so that they could not hear the law and the ^cwords which the Lord of hosts had sent by His Spirit through the ^dformer prophets; therefore great ^ewrath came from the Lord of hosts.

¹³“And just as ^aHe called and they would not listen, so ^bthey called and I would not listen,” says the Lord of hosts;

¹⁴“but I ^1ascattered them with a ^bstorm wind among all the nations whom they have not known. Thus the land is ^cdesolated behind them ²so that ^dno one went back and forth, for they ^emade the pleasant land desolate.”