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Sunday, August 3rd, 2025
the Week of Proper 13 / Ordinary 18
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Read the Bible

THE MESSAGE

Zechariah 7:4

God -of-the-Angel-Armies gave me this Message for them, for all the people and for the priests: "When you held days of fasting every fifth and seventh month all these seventy years, were you doing it for me? And when you held feasts, was that for me? Hardly. You're interested in religion, I'm interested in people.

Bible Study Resources

Concordances:

- Nave's Topical Bible - Impenitence;   Prophecy;  

Dictionaries:

- American Tract Society Bible Dictionary - Zechariah;   Baker Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology - Feasts and Festivals of Israel;   Easton Bible Dictionary - Fast;   Fausset Bible Dictionary - Fasting;   Holman Bible Dictionary - Zechariah, Book of;   Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible - Fasting;   Morrish Bible Dictionary - Sherezer ;   People's Dictionary of the Bible - Fasts;  

Encyclopedias:

- International Standard Bible Encyclopedia - Intercession;   Zechariah, Book of;   The Jewish Encyclopedia - Fasting and Fast-Days;   Haggai;  

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
Then the word of the Lord of Armies came to me:
Hebrew Names Version
Then the word of the LORD of Hosts came to me, saying,
King James Version (1611)
Then came the word of the Lord of hosts vnto me, saying,
King James Version
Then came the word of the Lord of hosts unto me, saying,
English Standard Version
Then the word of the Lord of hosts came to me:
New American Standard Bible
Then the word of the LORD of armies came to me, saying,
New Century Version
The Lord All-Powerful spoke his word to me, saying,
Amplified Bible
Then the word of the LORD of hosts came to me (Zechariah), saying,
Geneva Bible (1587)
Then came the word of the Lord of hostes vnto me, saying,
New American Standard Bible (1995)
Then the word of the LORD of hosts came to me, saying,
Legacy Standard Bible
Then the word of Yahweh of hosts came to me, saying,
Berean Standard Bible
Then the word of the LORD of Hosts came to me, saying,
Contemporary English Version
It was then that the Lord All-Powerful told me to say to everyone in the country, including the priests: For seventy years you have gone without eating during the fifth and seventh months of the year. But did you really do it for me?
Complete Jewish Bible
It was then that this message came to me from Adonai -Tzva'ot:
Darby Translation
And the word of Jehovah of hosts came unto me, saying,
Easy-to-Read Version
I received this message from the Lord All-Powerful:
George Lamsa Translation
Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying,
Good News Translation
This is the message of the Lord that came to me.
Lexham English Bible
And the word of Yahweh of hosts came to me, saying,
Literal Translation
The Word of Jehovah of Hosts was to me, saying,
American Standard Version
Then came the word of Jehovah of hosts unto me, saying,
Bible in Basic English
Then the word of the Lord of armies came to me, saying
JPS Old Testament (1917)
Then came the word of the LORD of hosts unto me, saying:
Bishop's Bible (1568)
Then came the worde of the Lorde of hoastes vnto me, saying:
Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
And the word of the Lord of hosts came to me, saying,
English Revised Version
Then came the word of the LORD of hosts unto me, saying,
World English Bible
Then the word of Yahweh of Hosts came to me, saying,
Wycliffe Bible (1395)
And the word of the Lord was maad to me,
Update Bible Version
Then the word of Yahweh of hosts came to me, saying,
Webster's Bible Translation
Then came the word of the LORD of hosts to me, saying,
New English Translation
The word of the Lord who rules over all then came to me,
New King James Version
Then the word of the LORD of hosts came to me, saying,
New Living Translation
The Lord of Heaven's Armies sent me this message in reply:
New Life Bible
Then the Word of the Lord of All came to me saying,
New Revised Standard
Then the word of the Lord of hosts came to me:
J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
Then came the word of Yahweh of hosts unto me, saying:
Douay-Rheims Bible
And the word of the Lord of hosts came to me, saying:
Revised Standard Version
Then the word of the LORD of hosts came to me;
Young's Literal Translation
And there is a word of Jehovah of Hosts unto me, saying:
Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
Then came the worde of the LORDE of hoostes vnto me, sayenge:

Contextual Overview

1 On the fourth day of the ninth month, in the fourth year of the reign of King Darius, God 's Message again came to Zechariah. 2The town of Bethel had sent a delegation headed by Sarezer and Regem-Melech to pray for God 's blessing and to confer with the priests of the Temple of God -of-the-Angel-Armies, and also with the prophets. They posed this question: "Should we plan for a day of mourning and abstinence next August, the seventieth anniversary of Jerusalem's fall, as we have been doing all these years?" 4 God -of-the-Angel-Armies gave me this Message for them, for all the people and for the priests: "When you held days of fasting every fifth and seventh month all these seventy years, were you doing it for me? And when you held feasts, was that for me? Hardly. You're interested in religion, I'm interested in people. 7"There's nothing new to say on the subject. Don't you still have the message of the earlier prophets from the time when Jerusalem was still a thriving, bustling city and the outlying countryside, the Negev and Shephelah, was populated? [This is the message that God gave Zechariah.] Well, the message hasn't changed. God -of-the-Angel-Armies said then and says now: "‘Treat one another justly. Love your neighbors. Be compassionate with each other. Don't take advantage of widows, orphans, visitors, and the poor. Don't plot and scheme against one another—that's evil.'

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

Lord of hosts: Isaiah 10:16

Cross-References

Genesis 2:5
At the time God made Earth and Heaven, before any grasses or shrubs had sprouted from the ground— God hadn't yet sent rain on Earth, nor was there anyone around to work the ground (the whole Earth was watered by underground springs)— God formed Man out of dirt from the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life. The Man came alive—a living soul!
Genesis 6:3
Then God said, "I'm not going to breathe life into men and women endlessly. Eventually they're going to die; from now on they can expect a life span of 120 years."
Genesis 6:13
God said to Noah, "It's all over. It's the end of the human race. The violence is everywhere; I'm making a clean sweep.
Genesis 6:17
"I'm going to bring a flood on the Earth that will destroy everything alive under Heaven. Total destruction.
Genesis 7:11
It was the six-hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month that it happened: all the underground springs erupted and all the windows of Heaven were thrown open. Rain poured for forty days and forty nights.
Genesis 7:17
The flood continued forty days and the waters rose and lifted the ship high over the Earth. The waters kept rising, the flood deepened on the Earth, the ship floated on the surface. The flood got worse until all the highest mountains were covered—the high-water mark reached twenty feet above the crest of the mountains. Everything died. Anything that moved—dead. Birds, farm animals, wild animals, the entire teeming exuberance of life—dead. And all people—dead. Every living, breathing creature that lived on dry land died; he wiped out the whole works—people and animals, crawling creatures and flying birds, every last one of them, gone. Only Noah and his company on the ship lived.
Genesis 8:10
He waited seven more days and sent out the dove again. It came back in the evening with a freshly picked olive leaf in its beak. Noah knew that the flood was about finished.
Genesis 8:12
He waited another seven days and sent the dove out a third time. This time it didn't come back.
Psalms 69:28
Strike their names from the list of the living; No rock-carved honor for them among the righteous.
Amos 4:7
"Yes, and I'm the One who stopped the rains three months short of harvest. I'd make it rain on one village but not on another. I'd make it rain on one field but not on another—and that one would dry up. People would stagger from village to village crazed for water and never quenching their thirst. But you never got thirsty for me. You ignored me." God 's Decree.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Then came the word of the Lord of hosts unto me, saying. Upon the sending of this embassy, and upon putting this question.


 
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