Zechariah 7 NLT ISV Parallel

◄ Zechariah 7 ►

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1On December 7 of the fourth year of King Darius’s reign, another message came to Zechariah from the LORD.

1During the fourth year of the reign of King Darius, a message from the LORD came to Zechariah on the fourth day of the ninth month Kislev.

2The people of Bethel had sent Sharezer and Regemmelech, along with their attendants, to seek the LORD’s favor.

2The people of Bethel were sending Sharezer, Regem-melech, and their men to pray in the LORD's presence

3They were to ask this question of the prophets and the priests at the Temple of the LORD of Heaven’s Armies: “Should we continue to mourn and fast each summer on the anniversary of the Temple’s destruction, as we have done for so many years?”

3and to speak to the priests assigned to the Temple of the LORD of the Heavenly Armies along with the prophets, asking, "Am I to go about mourning, denying myself throughout the fifth month, as I have these many years?"

4The LORD of Heaven’s Armies sent me this message in reply:

4Then this message from the LORD of the Heavenly Armies came to me:

5“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, was it really for me that you were fasting?

5"Talk to everyone in the land, as well as to the priests. Ask them, 'When you were fasting and mourning during the fifth and seventh months for the past seventy years, were you really fasting for me?

6And even now in your holy festivals, aren’t you eating and drinking just to please yourselves?

6And when you eat and drink, you're eating and drinking for your own benefit, aren't you?

7Isn’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 were well populated?’”

7Isn't this what the LORD proclaimed through the former prophets, when a prosperous Jerusalem was inhabited, as were its surrounding cities, the Negev, and the Shephelah?'"

8Then this message came to Zechariah from the LORD:

8This message from the LORD came to Zechariah again:

9“This is what the LORD of Heaven’s Armies says: Judge fairly, and show mercy and kindness to one another.

9"This is what the LORD of the Heavenly Armies says: 'Administer true justice, and show gracious love and mercy toward each other.

10Do not oppress widows, orphans, foreigners, and the poor. And do not scheme against each other.

10You are not to wrong the widow, orphans, the foreigner, or the poor, and you are not to plan evil against each other.

11“Your ancestors refused to listen to this message. They stubbornly turned away and put their fingers in their ears to keep from hearing.

11But they refused to pay attention, turned their backs, and stopped listening.

12They made their hearts as hard as stone, so they could not hear the instructions or the messages that the LORD of Heaven’s Armies had sent them by his Spirit through the earlier prophets. That is why the LORD of Heaven’s Armies was so angry with them.

12They made their hearts hard like a diamond, to keep from obeying the Law and the messages that the LORD of the Heavenly Armies sent by his Spirit through the former prophets.

13“Since they refused to listen when I called to them, I would not listen when they called to me, says the LORD of Heaven’s Armies.

13Therefore, just as when I cried out and they would not listen, so also they will cry out, and I will not listen,' says the LORD of the Heavenly Armies.

14As with a whirlwind, I scattered them among the distant nations, where they lived as strangers. Their land became so desolate that no one even traveled through it. They turned their pleasant land into a desert.”

14I will scatter them to all of the nations, which they have not known.'" Now the earth was left desolate after them. As a result, no one came or went because they had turned a pleasant land into a desert.

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