Zechariah 7:4-14

4Then the word of the Lord of armies 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 2seventy years, was it actually for 3Me that you fasted? 6And when you eat and drink, 4do you not eat for yourselves and drink for yourselves? 7Are these not the words which the Lord 5proclaimed by the former prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and 6carefree along with its cities around it, and the 78Negev and the 9foothills were inhabited?’”

8Then the word of the Lord came to Zechariah, saying, 9“This is what the Lord of armies has said: ‘10Dispense true justice and practice 11kindness and compassion each to his brother; 10and 12do not oppress the widow or the 13orphan, the stranger or the poor; and do 14not devise evil in your hearts against one another.’ 11But they 15refused to pay attention, and 1617turned a stubborn shoulder and 1819plugged their ears from hearing. 12They also made their 20hearts as hard as 21a diamond 22so that they could not hear the Law and the 23words which the Lord of armies had sent by His Spirit through the 24former prophets; therefore great 25wrath came from the Lord of armies. 13And just as 26He called and they would not listen, so 27they called and I would not listen,” says the Lord of armies; 14“but I 2829scattered them with a 30storm wind among all the nations whom they did not know. So the land was 31desolated behind them 32so that 33no one went back and forth, since they 34made the pleasant land desolate.”