Punishment for Rejecting God’s Demands

⁸ The word of the Lord came to Zechariah, saying: ⁹ “Thus says the Lord of hosts: Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another;^{(A) 10} do not oppress the widow, the orphan, the alien, or the poor; and do not devise evil in your hearts against one another.^{(B) 11} But they refused to listen and turned a stubborn shoulder and stopped their ears in order not to hear.^{(C) 12} They made their hearts adamant in order not to hear the law and the words that the Lord of hosts had sent by his spirit through the former prophets. Therefore great wrath came from the Lord of hosts.^{(D) 13} Just as, when I^[a] called, they would not hear, so, when they called, I would not hear, says the Lord of hosts,^{(E) 14} and I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations that they had not known. Thus the land they left was desolate, so that no one went to and fro, and a pleasant land was made desolate.”^(F)