A Call to Justice and Mercy 1 UST 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 UST The people of the city of Bethel sent two men, Sharezer and Regem- Melech, along with some other men, to consult with Yahweh BSB BSB: Now the people of Bethel had sent Sharezer and Regem-melech, along with their men, to plead before the LORD
3 UST by asking the priests at Yahweh’s temple and the prophets if they should continue their years-long practice of mourning{ the anniversary of the destruction of the temple} by fasting during the fifth month. 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 UST Then Yahweh, commander of the angel armies, gave me, Zechariah, a message. BSB BSB: Then the word of the LORD of Hosts came to me, saying,
5 UST 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. It was not me you honored in the fifth and seventh months these 70 years. 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 UST And when you feasted at my temple, you did it just to have a good time, not to honor me. BSB BSB: And when you were eating and drinking, were you not doing so simply for yourselves?
7 UST 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 UST Yahweh gave another message to me: BSB BSB: Then the word of the LORD came to Zechariah, saying,
9 UST “Tell the people that this is what Yahweh, commander of the angel armies, said{ to your ancestors}:‘I told them to do what is just, to act faithfully 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 UST I told them not to oppress widows or orphans or foreigners or poor people. I told them not to 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 UST But the people refused to obey Yahweh. They resisted him. They did not even 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 UST 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 UST 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 UST I scattered them among many nations, nations that they had never been to before just as a storm scatters leaves. After they were gone, their own land was empty, with no one living there. No one traveled through it or came 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.”