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Hearts like Flint

¹ In the fourth year of the reign of King Darius of Persia, the word of the LORD came to Zechariah on the fourth day of the ninth month, which is ^(C1)Chislev (Dec 7, 518 B.C.).² Now the people of Bethel had sent Sharezer and Regem-melech and their men to ^(C1)seek the favor of the LORD,³ speaking to the ^(C1)priests who belong to the house of the LORD of hosts and to the prophets, saying, "Now that I am returned from exile shall I weep in the ^(C2)fifth month mourning the destruction of the temple, and fast as I have done these many years in Babylon?"⁴ Then the word of the LORD of hosts came to me (Zechariah), saying,⁵ "Speak to all the people of the land and to the priests, saying, 'When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months these ^(C1)seventy years that you were in exile, was it actually for ^(C2)Me that you fasted?⁶ 'When you eat and when you drink, do you not eat for yourselves and do you not drink for yourselves to satisfy your own needs?⁷ 'Should you not hear the words which the LORD ^(C1)proclaimed by the former prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and ^(C2)prosperous along with her cities around her, and the ^(C3)South (the Negev) and the foothills were inhabited?'"

⁸ Then the word of the LORD came to Zechariah, saying,⁹ "Thus has the LORD of hosts said, '^(C1)Dispense true justice and practice ^(C2)kindness and compassion, to each other;¹⁰ and ^(C1)do not oppress or exploit the widow or the fatherless, the stranger or the poor; and do ^(C2)not devise or even imagine evil in your hearts against one another.'¹¹ "But they ^(C1)refused to listen and pay attention and ^(C2)turned a stubborn shoulder stiffening themselves in resistance and ^(C3)stopped up their ears.¹² "They made their ^(C1)hearts hard like ^(C2)flint, so that they could not hear the law and the ^(C3)words which the LORD of hosts had sent by His Spirit through the ^(C4)former prophets. Therefore great ^(C5)wrath came from the LORD of hosts.¹³ "And just as ^(C1)He called and they would not listen, so ^(C2)they called and I would not listen," says the LORD of hosts;¹⁴ "but I ^(C1)scattered them with a ^(C2)storm wind among all the nations whom they have not known. Thus the land was ^(C3)desolate after they had gone, so that ^(C4)no one passed through or returned, for they by their sins ^(C5)had made the pleasant land desolate and deserted."