1 ARST When Darius had been the emperor for almost four years, on the fourth day of Kislev(which was the ninth month in their calendar), Yahweh gave me another message. BSB BSB: In the fourth year of King Darius, the word of the LORD came to Zechariah on the fourth day of the ninth month, the month of Chislev.
2 ARST The people of the city of Bethel sent two men, Sharezer and Regem- Melek,, along with some other men, to the temple of Yahweh, commander of the angel armies, to request that Yahweh be kind to them. BSB BSB: Now the people of Bethel had sent Sharezer and Regem-melech, along with their men, to plead before the LORD
3 ARST They also asked the priests at Yahweh’ s temple and the prophets this question:“For many years, during the fifth month and during the seventh month of each year, we have mourned and fasted. Should we continue to do that?” BSB BSB: by asking the priests of the house of the LORD of Hosts, as well as the prophets, “Should I weep and fast in the fifth month, as I have done these many years?”
4 ARST Then Yahweh, commander of the angel armies, gave me a message. BSB BSB: Then the word of the LORD of Hosts came to me, saying,
5 ARST He told me to say this to the priests and, in fact, to everyone in the whole land:“Tell me whom you were honoring when you did not eat but went around in dirty clothing. You were not really honoring me, were you? BSB BSB: “Ask all the people of the land and the priests, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months for these seventy years, was it really for Me that you fasted?
6 ARST And when you feasted at my temple, you did it just to have a good time; you did not really intend to honor me, did you? BSB BSB: And when you were eating and drinking, were you not doing so simply for yourselves?
7 ARST This is exactly what I kept telling the former prophets to proclaim to the people, when the people in Jerusalem and the nearby towns were many and prosperous, and when people also lived in the southern Judean wilderness, and in the foothills to the west.” BSB BSB: Are these not the words that the LORD proclaimed through the earlier prophets, when Jerusalem and its surrounding towns were populous and prosperous, and the Negev and the foothills were inhabited?’”
8 ARST Yahweh gave another message to me: BSB BSB: Then the word of the LORD came to Zechariah, saying,
9 ARST “Tell the people that this is what Yahweh, commander of the angel armies, says:‘I told you to do what is just, to act kindly and mercifully toward each other, in order to honor my covenant with you. BSB BSB: “This is what the LORD of Hosts says: ‘Administer true justice. Show loving devotion and compassion to one another.
10 ARST I told you not to oppress widows or orphans or foreigners or poor people. I said to not even think about doing evil to anyone else.’” BSB BSB: Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor. And do not plot evil in your hearts against one another.’
11 ARST But the people refused to pay attention to what Yahweh had said. They refused to cooperate with him; they refused to listen to what he said. BSB BSB: But they refused to pay attention and turned a stubborn shoulder; they stopped up their ears from hearing.
12 ARST He had given these messages for his Spirit to repeat to the prophets in earlier times. The prophets were meant to speak these messages to the people. But the people were very stubborn; they would not listen to the law of Moses or to any message from God. So Yahweh, commander of the angel armies, became very angry with them. BSB BSB: They made their hearts like flint and would not listen to the law or to the words that the LORD of Hosts had sent by His Spirit through the earlier prophets. Therefore great anger came from the LORD of Hosts.
13 ARST In those times, when Yahweh, commander of the angel armies, called to the people, they refused to listen. So he said,“In exactly the same way, I will refuse to listen when they call to me. BSB BSB: And just as I had called and they would not listen, so when they called I would not listen, says the LORD of Hosts.
14 ARST And I will scatter them among many nations, nations that they have never been to before. I will scatter them as a storm scatters leaves. After they are gone, their own land will be empty, with no one living there. No one will travel through it and no one will come back to it, because they have turned it, their most pleasant land, into a wilderness.” BSB BSB: But I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations that they had not known, and the land was left desolate behind them so that no one could come or go. Thus they turned the pleasant land into a desolation.”