1In the fourth year of King Darius, the word of the LORD came to Zechariah. It came on the fourth day of the ninth month, the month of Chisleu.
2The people had sent Sherezer and Regemmelech and their men to the house of God, to pray before the LORD.
3They were also to speak to the priests in the house of the LORD of hosts, and to the prophets. They asked, "Should I weep in the fifth month, and keep myself apart, as I have done for so many years?"
4Then the word of the LORD of hosts came to me. He said,
5"Speak to all the people of the land, and to the priests. Say to them: When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh month for those seventy years, was it really for me that you fasted, for me?"
6And when you ate and when you drank, were you not eating for yourselves and drinking for yourselves?
7"Should you not hear the words the LORD cried out through the prophets long ago? That was when Jerusalem was full of people and at peace, with her towns all around her, and when people lived in the south and on the plain."
8And the word of the LORD came to Zechariah. He said,
9"This is what the LORD of hosts says: Judge with true justice. Show mercy and compassion, each man to his brother."
10"Do not crush the widow, or the fatherless, or the stranger, or the poor. And let none of you plan evil against his brother in your heart."
11But they refused to listen. They turned their shoulder away, and they stopped their ears so they would not hear.
12Yes, they made their hearts as hard as the hardest stone, so they would not hear the law, or the words that the LORD of hosts had sent by his Spirit through the prophets long ago. So a great anger came from the LORD of hosts.
13So it happened that as he called out and they would not listen, so they called out and I would not listen, says the LORD of hosts.
14"But I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations they did not know. So the land was left empty behind them, and no one passed through it or came back. For they made the pleasant land a waste."