Zechariah:7

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* Now in the fourth year of King Darius it came to pass that the word of the LORD came to Zechariah , on the fourth day of the ninth month , Chislev , * when the people sent Sherezer , with Regem-Melech and his men , to the house of God , to pray before the LORD , * and to ask the priests who were in the house of the LORD of hosts , and the prophets , saying , "Should I weep in the fifth month and fast as I have done for so many years ?" * Then the word of the LORD of hosts came to me , saying , * "Say to all the people of the land , and to the priests : "When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months during those seventy years , did you really fast for Me--for Me ? * When you eat and when you drink , do you not eat and drink for yourselves ? * Should you not have obeyed the words which the LORD proclaimed through the former prophets when Jerusalem and the cities around it were inhabited and prosperous , and the South and the Lowland were inhabited ?"' * Then the word of the LORD came to Zechariah , saying , * "Thus says the LORD of hosts : "Execute true justice , Show mercy and compassion Everyone to his brother . * 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 .' * But they refused to heed , shrugged their shoulders , and stopped their ears so that they could not hear . * Yes , they made their hearts like flint , refusing to hear the law and the words which the LORD of hosts had sent by His Spirit through the former prophets . Thus great wrath came from the LORD of hosts . * Therefore it happened , that just as He proclaimed and they would not hear , so they called out and I would not listen ," says the LORD of hosts . * "But I 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 ."

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