1 The Hypocrisy of False FastingIn King Darius’ fourth year, on the fourth day of Kislev, the ninth month, the LORD’s message came to Zechariah.2 Now the people of Bethel had sent Sharezer and Regem-Melech and their companions to seek the LORD’s favor3 by asking both the priests of the temple of the LORD of Heaven’s Armies and the prophets, “Should we weep in the fifth month, fasting as we have done over the years?”4 The message of the LORD of Heaven’s Armies then came to me,5 “Speak to all the people and priests of the land as follows: ‘When you fasted and lamented in the fifth and seventh months through all these 70 years, did you truly fast for me—for me, indeed?6 And now when you eat and drink, are you not doing so for yourselves?7 Should you not have obeyed the words that the LORD cried out through the former prophets when Jerusalem was peacefully inhabited and her surrounding cities, the Negev, and the foothills were also populated?’”8 Again the LORD’s message came to Zechariah:9 “The LORD of Heaven’s Armies said, ‘Exercise true judgment and show brotherhood and compassion to each other.10 You must not oppress the widow, the orphan, the resident foreigner, or the poor, nor should anyone secretly plot evil against his fellow citizen.’11 “But they refused to pay attention, turning away stubbornly and stopping their ears so they could not hear.12 Indeed, they made their hearts as hard as diamond, so that they could not obey the law of Moses and the other words the LORD of Heaven’s Armies had sent by his Spirit through the former prophets. Therefore, the LORD of Heaven’s Armies poured out great wrath.13 “‘Just as I called out, but they would not obey, so they will call out, but I will not listen,’ the LORD of Heaven’s Armies says.14 ‘Rather, I will sweep them away in a storm into all the nations they are not familiar with.’ Thus the land became desolate because of them, with no one crossing through or returning, for they had made the fruitful land a waste.”