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 ^(A)fasted and mourned in the fifth ^(B)and seventh months ^(C)during those seventy years, did you really fast ^(D)for Me—for Me? ^6 (E)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 ^(F)former prophets when Jerusalem and the cities around it were inhabited and prosperous, and ^(G)the ^[a]South and the Lowland were inhabited?’ ”