5. “Speak to all the people and priests of the land as follows: ‘When you fasted and lamented in the fifth and seventh months through all these seventy years, did you truly fast for me – for me, indeed?
6. And now when you eat and drink, are you not doing so for yourselves?’”
7. Should you not have obeyed the words that the Lord cried out through the former prophets when Jerusalem was peacefully inhabited and her surrounding cities, the Negev, and the Shephelah were also populated?
8. Again the word of the Lord came to Zechariah:
9. “The Lord who rules over all said, ‘Exercise true judgment and show brotherhood and compassion to each other.
10. You must not oppress the widow, the orphan, the foreigner, or the poor, nor should anyone secretly plot evil against his fellow human being.’
11. “But they refused to pay attention, turning away stubbornly and stopping their ears so they could not hear.