⁴ Then the word of the Lord of Hosts came to me: ⁵ “Ask all the people of the land and the priests: When you fasted and lamented in the fifth and in the seventh months for these 70 years, did you really fast for Me?^{(A) 6} When you eat and drink, don’t you eat and drink simply for yourselves?^{(B) 7} Aren’t these the words that the Lord proclaimed through the earlier prophets when Jerusalem was inhabited and secure,^[a] along with its surrounding cities, and when the southern region and the Judean foothills were inhabited?”