Zechariah 7:1-7

New King James Version

Obedience Better than Fasting

7 Now in the fourth year of King Darius it came to pass that the word of the Lord came to Zechariah, on the fourth day of the ninth month, Chislev, ² when ^[a]the people sent ^[b]Sherezer, with Regem-Melech and his men, to ^[c]the house of God, ^[d]to pray before the Lord, ³ and to ^(A)ask the priests who were in the house of the Lord of hosts, and the prophets, saying, “Should I weep in ^(B)the fifth month and ^[e]fast as I have done for so many years?”

⁴ Then the word of the Lord of hosts came to me, saying, ⁵ “Say to all the people of the land, and to the priests: ‘When you ^(C)fasted and mourned in the fifth ^(D)and seventh months ^(E)during those seventy years, did you really fast ^(F)for Me—for Me? ^6 (G)When you eat and when you drink, do you not eat and drink for yourselves? ⁷ Should you not have obeyed the words which the Lord proclaimed through the ^(H)former prophets when Jerusalem and the cities around it were inhabited and prosperous, and ^(I)the ^[f]South and the Lowland were inhabited?’ ”