1And it happened in the fourth year of king Darius, the Word of the LORD came to Zechariah in the fourth of the ninth month, in Chislev. 2And Sherezer and Regem-melech and his men had been sent [to] the house of God, to seek the favor of the LORD, 3to speak to the priests who [belong] to the house of the LORD of hosts, and to the prophets, saying, Should I weep in the fifth month, consecrating myself, as I have done these many years? 4And came the Word of the LORD of hosts to me, saying, 5Speak to all the people of the land, and to the priests, saying, When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months, even those seventy years, did you truly fast to Me, [even] to Me? 6And when you ate, and when you drank, was it not for you the eaters, and for you, the drinkers? 7Are not [these] the words which the LORD proclaimed by the former prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited, and prosperous, and her cities all around her, and the Negev and the Shephelah were inhabited? 8And the Word of the LORD came to Zechariah, saying, 9So speaks the LORD of hosts, saying, Judge true judgment, and practice kindness and pity, [each] man to his brother. 10And do not crush the widow or the orphan, the alien or the poor. And do not devise evil in your heart, of a man [against] his brother. 11But they refused to listen, and gave a stubborn shoulder, and made heavy their ears from hearing. 12And they made their hearts adamant from hearing the law and the words which the LORD of hosts has sent through His Spirit, by the former prophets. And great wrath came from the LORD of hosts. 13And it will be, as He called, and they did not listen, so they called, and I did not listen, says the LORD of hosts. 14But I stormed them away on all the nations whom they did not know. And the land has been wasted behind them, from passing and from returning; for they made the land of desire a waste.