Obedience Better than Fasting
1 Now in the fourth year of King Darius it came to passthatthe word of theLordcame to Zechariah, on the fourthdayof the ninth month, Chislev,
2 whenthepeoplesent Sherezer, with Regem-Melech and his men,tothe house of God, to pray before theLord,
3 andtoask the priests whowerein the house of theLordof hosts, and the prophets, saying, “Should I weep inthe fifth month and fast as I have done for so many years?”
4 Then the word of theLordof hosts came to me, saying,
5 “Say to all the people of the land, and to the priests: ‘When youfasted and mourned in the fifthand seventhmonthsduring those seventy years, did you really fastfor Me—for Me?
6 When you eat and when you drink, do you not eat and drinkforyourselves?
7 Shouldyounothaveobeyedthe words which theLordproclaimed through theformer prophets when Jerusalem and the cities around it were inhabited and prosperous, andthe South and the Lowland were inhabited?’ ”
Disobedience Resulted in Captivity
8 Then the word of theLordcame to Zechariah, saying,
9 “Thus says theLordof hosts:
# ‘Execute true justice,
Show mercy and compassion
Everyone to his brother.
10 Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless,
The alien or the poor.
# Let none of you plan evil in his heart
Against his brother.’
11 “But they refused to heed,shrugged their shoulders, andstopped their ears so that they could not hear.
12 Yes, they made theirhearts like flint,refusing to hear the law and the words which theLordof hosts had sent by His Spirit through the former prophets.Thus great wrath came from theLordof hosts.
13 Therefore it happened,thatjust as He proclaimed and they would not hear, sothey called out and I would not listen,” says theLordof hosts.
14 “ButI scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations which they had not known. Thus the land became desolate after them, so that no one passed through or returned; for they made the pleasant land desolate.”