Zechariah 7:5-12

5“Tell all the people of the land and the priests, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months these past 70 years, did you really do it for me?

6When you ate and drank, didn’t you do it to benefit yourselves?

7Aren’t these the same words that the Lord announced through the earlier prophets, when Jerusalem and its surrounding cities were inhabited and undisturbed and the Negev and the foothills were still inhabited?’ ”

8Then the Lord spoke his word to Zechariah. He said,

9“This is what the Lord of Armies says: Administer real justice, and be compassionate and kind to each other.

10Don’t oppress widows, orphans, foreigners, and poor people. And don’t even think of doing evil to each other.

11“But people refused to pay attention. They shrugged their shoulders at me and shut their ears so that they couldn’t hear.

12They made their hearts as hard as flint so that they couldn’t hear the Lord’s teachings, the words that the Lord of Armies had sent by his Spirit through the earlier prophets. So the Lord of Armies became very angry.