A Call to Justice and Mercy

¹ In the fourth year of king Darius, the word of the Lord came to Zechariah in the fourth day of the ninth month, the month of Chislev. ² The people of Bethel sent Sharezer and Regem Melech and their men to entreat the Lord’s favor, ³ and to speak to the priests of the house of the Lord of Hosts and to the prophets, saying, “Should I weep in the fifth month, separating myself, as I have done these many years?”

⁴ Then the word of the Lord of Hosts came to me, saying, ⁵ “Speak to all the people of the land, and to the priests, saying, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and in the seventh month for these 70 years, did you at all fast to me, really to me? ⁶ When you eat, and when you drink, do you not eat for yourselves, and drink for yourselves?

⁷ Are these not the words which the Lord proclaimed through the former prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and prosperous and its cities around her and the South and the lowland were inhabited?’ ”

⁸ The word of the Lord came to Zechariah, saying, ⁹ “Thus has the Lord of Hosts spoken, saying, ‘Execute true judgment and let every man show kindness and compassion to his brother. ¹⁰ Do not oppress the widow, nor the fatherless, the foreigner, nor the poor, and let none of you devise evil against his brother in your heart.’

¹¹ But they refused to listen and turned their backs and stopped their ears so that they might not hear. ¹² Yes, they made their hearts as hard as flint, lest they hear the law and the words which the Lord of Hosts had sent through his Spirit by the former prophets. Therefore great wrath came from the Lord of Hosts.

¹³ It has come to pass that, as he called, and they refused to listen, so they will call, and I will not listen,” said the Lord of Hosts, ¹⁴ “but I will scatter them with a whirlwind among all the nations which they have not known. Thus the land was desolate after them, so that no man passed through nor returned, for they made the pleasant land desolate.”

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