Zechariah 7
All 14 verses in the Clear Bible Translation. Tap a verse to compare the KJV and read what it means.
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- 1In the 4th year of King Darius's reign, on the 4th day of the 9th month — the month of Chisleu — the word of the LORD came to Zechariah.
- 2When they sent Sherezer and Regemmelech, along with their men, to the house of God to pray before the LORD,
- 3And to speak to the priests who were in the house of the LORD of hosts, and to the prophets, saying, “Should I weep in the fifth month, separating myself, as I have done these so many years?”
- 4Then the word of the LORD of hosts came to me:
- 5Tell all the people of the land and the priests: 'When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months for those seventy years, was it really for me that you fasted?'
- 6And when you ate and when you drank, didn't you eat for yourselves and drink for yourselves?
- 7Should you not listen to the words the LORD proclaimed through the former prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and prosperous, and the cities around it, when people lived in the Negev and the lowlands?
- 8The word of the LORD came to Zechariah again:
- 9This is what the LORD of hosts says: 'Execute true judgment, and show mercy and compassion to each person to his brother.'
- 10Don't exploit widows, orphans, foreigners, or the poor. And don't plot evil against each other in your hearts.'
- 11But they refused to listen, shrugged their shoulders, and stopped their ears so they wouldn't hear.
- 12They made their hearts as hard as flint so they wouldn't hear the law or the words the LORD of hosts had sent in his spirit by the former prophets. Therefore, a great wrath came from the LORD of hosts.
- 13"So this is what happened," says the LORD of hosts. "When I called out to them, they wouldn't listen. So when they called out to me, I wouldn't listen either.
- 14I scattered them like a whirlwind among nations they had never known. The land they left behind became so desolate that no one traveled through it or lived there anymore. They had turned a beautiful land into a wasteland."