⁴ Then the word of the Lord Almighty came to me: ⁵ “Ask all the people of the land and the priests, ‘When you fasted^(A) and mourned in the fifth and seventh^(B) months for the past seventy years,^(C) was it really for me that you fasted? ⁶ And when you were eating and drinking, were you not just feasting for yourselves?^{(D) 7} Are these not the words the Lord proclaimed through the earlier prophets^(E) when Jerusalem and its surrounding towns were at rest^(F) and prosperous, and the Negev and the western foothills^(G) were settled?’”^(H)