A Call for Justice and Mercy

1In the fourth year of King Darius, the word of the Lord came to Zechariah on the fourth day of the ninth month, which is Chislev.  2Now the people of Bethel had sent Sharezer and Regem-melech and their men to entreat the favor of the Lord,  3saying to the priests of the house of the Lord of hosts and the prophets, “Should I weep and abstain in the fifth month, as I have done for so many years?”

4Then the word of the Lord of hosts came to me:  5“Say to all the people of the land and the priests, When you fasted and mourned in the fifth month and in the seventh, for these seventy years, was it for me that you fasted?  6And when you eat and when you drink, do you not eat for yourselves and drink for yourselves?  7Were not these the words that the Lord proclaimed by the former prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and prosperous, with her cities around her, and the South and the lowland were inhabited?”

8And the word of the Lord came to Zechariah, saying,  9“Thus says the Lord of hosts, Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another,  10do not oppress the widow, the fatherless, the sojourner, or the poor, and let none of you devise evil against another in your heart.”  11But they refused to pay attention and turned a stubborn shoulder and stopped their ears that they might not hear.  12They made their hearts diamond-hard lest they should hear the law and the words that the Lord of hosts had sent by his Spirit through the former prophets. Therefore great anger came from the Lord of hosts.  13“As I called, and they would not hear, so they called, and I would not hear,” says the Lord of hosts,  14“and I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations that they had not known. Thus the land they left was desolate, so that no one went to and fro, and the pleasant land was made desolate.”