Study Desk

Justice and Mercy, Not Fasting

In the fourth year of King Darius, the word of the Lord came to Zechariah^(a) on the fourth day of the ninth month, the month of Kislev.^(b)

The people of Bethel had sent Sharezer and Regem-Melek, together with their men, to entreat^(c) the Lord ^(d)

by asking the priests of the house of the Lord Almighty and the prophets, "Should I mourn^(e) and fast in the fifth^(f) month, as I have done for so many years?"

Then the word of the Lord Almighty came to me:

"Ask all the people of the land and the priests, ‘When you fasted^(g) and mourned in the fifth and seventh^(h) months for the past seventy years,⁽ⁱ⁾ was it really for me that you fasted?

And when you were eating and drinking, were you not just feasting for yourselves?^(j)

Are these not the words the Lord proclaimed through the earlier prophets^(k) when Jerusalem and its surrounding towns were at rest^(l) and prosperous, and the Negev and the western foothills^(m) were settled?'"⁽ⁿ⁾

And the word of the Lord came again to Zechariah:

"This is what the Lord Almighty said: ‘Administer true justice;^(o) show mercy and compassion to one another.^(p)

Do not oppress the widow^(q) or the fatherless, the foreigner^(r) or the poor.^(s) Do not plot evil against each other.'^(t)

"But they refused to pay attention; stubbornly^(u) they turned their backs^(v) and covered their ears.^(w)

They made their hearts as hard as flint^(x) and would not listen to the law or to the words that the Lord Almighty had sent by his Spirit through the earlier prophets.^(y) So the Lord Almighty was very angry.^(z)

"‘When I called, they did not listen;^(aa) so when they called, I would not listen,'^(ab) says the Lord Almighty.^(ac)

‘I scattered^(ad) them with a whirlwind^(ae) among all the nations, where they were strangers. The land they left behind them was so desolate that no one traveled through it.^(af) This is how they made the pleasant land desolate.^(ag)'"