Zechariah 7:11-14

New International Reader's Version

¹¹ But they refused to pay attention to the Lord. They were stubborn. They turned their backs and covered their ears. ¹² They made their hearts as hard as the hardest stone. They wouldn’t listen to the law. They wouldn’t pay attention to the Lord’s messages. So the Lord who rules over all was very angry. After all, his Spirit had spoken to his people through the earlier prophets.

¹³ “When I called, they did not listen,” says the Lord. “So when they called, I would not listen. ¹⁴ I used a windstorm to scatter them among all the nations. They were strangers there. The land they left behind became dry and empty. No one could even travel through it. This is how they turned the pleasant land into a dry and empty desert.”