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The Lord of Heaven’s Armies sent me this message in reply: “Say to all your people and your priests, ‘During these seventy years of exile, when you fasted and mourned in the summer and in early autumn,[a] was it really for me that you were fasting? And even now in your holy festivals, aren’t you eating and drinking just to please yourselves? Isn’t this the same message the Lord proclaimed through the prophets in years past when Jerusalem and the towns of Judah were bustling with people, and the Negev and the foothills of Judah[b] were well populated?’”

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Footnotes

  1. 7:5 Hebrew fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months. The fifth month of the ancient Hebrew lunar calendar usually occurs within the months of July and August. The seventh month usually occurs within the months of September and October; both the Day of Atonement and the Festival of Shelters were celebrated in the seventh month.
  2. 7:7 Hebrew the Shephelah.

Then the word of Yahweh of hosts came to me, saying, “Speak to all the people of the land and to the priests, saying, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months [a]these (A)seventy years, was it actually for (B)Me that you fasted? And when you eat and when you drink, [b]are you not eating for yourselves and are you not drinking for yourselves? Are not these the words which Yahweh (C)called out by the hand of the former prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and (D)at ease along with its cities around it, and the [c](E)Negev and the [d]Shephelah were inhabited?’”

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Footnotes

  1. Zechariah 7:5 Lit and these
  2. Zechariah 7:6 Lit is it not you who eat and you who drink
  3. Zechariah 7:7 South country
  4. Zechariah 7:7 Or lowland