Parallel Bible results for "zechariah 7"

Zechariah 7

The Bible in Basic English BBE

1 And it came about in the fourth year of King Darius, that the word of the Lord came to Zechariah on the fourth day of the ninth month, the month Chislev.

2 Now they of Beth-el had sent Sharezer and Regem-melech to make a request for grace from the Lord,

3 And to say to the priests of the house of the Lord of armies and to the prophets, Am I to go on weeping in the fifth month, separating myself as I have done in past years?

4 Then the word of the Lord of armies came to me, saying

5 Say to all the people of the land and to the priests, When you went without food and gave yourselves to grief in the fifth and the seventh months for these seventy years, did you ever do it because of me?

6 And when you are feasting and drinking, are you not doing it only for yourselves?

7 Are not these the words which the Lord said to you by the earlier prophets, when Jerusalem was full of people and wealth, and the towns round about her and the South and the Lowland were peopled?

8 And the word of the Lord came to Zechariah, saying,

9 This is what the Lord of armies has said: Let your judging be upright and done in good faith, let every man have mercy and pity for his brother:

10 Do not be hard on the widow, or the child without a father, on the man from a strange country, or on the poor; let there be no evil thought in your heart against your brother.

11 But they would not give attention, turning their backs and stopping their ears from hearing;

12 And they made their hearts like the hardest stone, so that they might not give ear to the law and the words which the Lord of armies had said by the earlier prophets: and there came great wrath from the Lord of armies.

13 And it came about that as they would not give ear to his voice, so I would not give ear to their voice, says the Lord of armies:

14 But with a storm-wind I sent them in flight among all the nations of whom they had no knowledge. So the land was waste after them, so that no man went through or came back: for they had made waste the desired land.

Good News Translation GNT

1 In the fourth year that Darius was emperor, on the fourth day of the ninth month (the month of Kislev), the Lord gave me a message.

2 The people of Bethel had sent Sharezer and Regemmelech and their men to the Temple of the Lord Almighty to pray for the Lord's blessing

3 and to ask the priests and the prophets this question: "Should we continue to mourn because of the destruction of the Temple, by fasting in the fifth month as we have done for so many years now?"

4 This is the message of the Lord that came to me.

5 He said, "Tell the people of the land and the priests that when they fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months during these seventy years, it was not in honor of me.

6 And when they ate and drank, it was for their own satisfaction."

7 This is what the Lord said through the earlier prophets at the time when Jerusalem was prosperous and filled with people and when there were many people living not only in the towns around the city but also in the southern region and in the western foothills.

8 The Lord gave this message to Zechariah:

9 "Long ago I gave these commands to my people: "You must see that justice is done, and must show kindness and mercy to one another.

10 Do not oppress widows, orphans, foreigners who live among you, or anyone else in need. And do not plan ways of harming one another.'

11 "But my people stubbornly refused to listen. They closed their minds

12 and made their hearts as hard as rock. Because they would not listen to the teaching which I sent through the prophets who lived long ago, I became very angry.

13 Because they did not listen when I spoke, I did not answer when they prayed.

14 Like a storm I swept them away to live in foreign countries. This good land was left a desolate place, with no one living in it."