⁴ Then the word of the Lord of hosts came to me (Zechariah), saying, ⁵ “Speak to all the people of the land and to the priests, saying, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months these seventy years [that you were in exile], was it actually for Me that you fasted? ⁶ When you eat and when you drink, do you not eat for yourselves and do you not drink for yourselves [to satisfy your own needs]? ⁷ Should you not hear the words which the Lord proclaimed by the former prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and prosperous along with her cities around her, and the South (the Negev) and the foothills were inhabited?’”