In the fourth year of King Darius, the word of the LORD came to Zechariah on the fourth day of the ninth month, which is ^aChislev. 2 Now the town of Bethel had sent Sharezer and Regemmelech and ¹their men to ^2aseek the favor of the LORD, 3 speaking to the ^apriests who belong to the house of the LORD of armies, and to the prophets, saying, “Shall I weep in the ^bfifth month ¹and fast, as I have done these many years?” 4 Then 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 ^aseventy years, was it actually for ^bMe that you fasted? 6 And when you eat and drink, ¹do you not eat for yourselves and drink for yourselves? 7 Are these not the words which the LORD ^aproclaimed by the former prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and ^bcarefree along with its cities around it, and the ^1cNegev and the ²foothills were inhabited?’”

8 Then the word of the LORD came to Zechariah, saying, 9 “This is what the LORD of armies has said: ‘^aDispense true justice and practice ^bkindness and compassion each to his brother; 10 and ^ado not oppress the widow or the ¹orphan, the stranger or the poor; and do ^bnot devise evil in your hearts against one another.’ 11 But they ^arefused to pay attention, and ^1bturned a stubborn shoulder and ^2cplugged their ears from hearing. 12 They also made their ^ahearts as hard as ^ba diamond ¹so that they could not hear the Law and the ^cwords which the LORD of armies had sent by His Spirit through the ^dformer prophets; therefore great ^ewrath came from the LORD of armies. 13 And just as ^aHe called and they would not listen, so ^bthey called and I would not listen,” says the LORD of armies; 14 “but I ^1ascattered them with a ^bstorm wind among all the nations whom they did not know. So the land was ^cdesolated behind them ²so that ^dno one went back and forth, since they ^emade the pleasant land desolate.”