The Hebrew Prophets

He sent Sar'etzer and Regem-Melekh with his men to Beit-El in order to ask ADONAI's favor,

as they inquired of the cohanim of the house of ADONAI-Tzva'ot and the prophets, "Should we go into mourning and abstain from pleasure during the fifth month, as we have been doing for all these years?"

It was then that this message came to me from ADONAI-Tzva'ot:

"Speak to all the people of the land and to the cohanim. Tell them, 'When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months throughout these seventy years, were you really fasting for me? Was it for me?

Rather, when you eat and drink, it's just to please yourselves, isn't it?

Isn't this just what ADONAI proclaimed through the earlier prophets, when Yerushalayim was inhabited and prosperous, as were the cities around her; and the Negev and the Sh'felah were inhabited?'"

Then this message from ADONAI came to Z'kharyah:

"In the past ADONAI-Tzva'ot said, 'Administer true justice. Let everyone show mercy and compassion to his brother.

Don't oppress widows, orphans, foreigners or poor people. Don't plot evil against each other.'

But they wouldn't listen, they stubbornly turned their shoulder away and stopped up their ears, so that they wouldn't have to hear it.

Yes, they made their hearts as hard as a diamond, so that they wouldn't hear the Torah and the messages that ADONAI-Tzva'ot had sent by his Spirit through the earlier prophets. This is why great anger came from ADONAI-Tzva'ot;

and it came about that just as they hadn't listened when he called, so ADONAI-Tzva'ot said, 'I won't listen when they call;

but with the power of a whirlwind I will disperse them among all the nations which they have not known.' Thus the land was left desolate after them, so that no one came or went. They had turned a pleasant land into a desert."

A message came from ADONAI-Tzva'ot:

"ADONAI-Tzva'ot says, 'I am extremely jealous on Tziyon's behalf, and I am jealous for her with great fury.'

ADONAI says, 'I am returning to Tziyon, and I will live in Yerushalayim. Then Yerushalayim will be called Truth City, ADONAI-Tzva'ot's Mountain, the Mountain of the Holy One.

ADONAI-Tzva'ot says, 'Old men and old women will once again sit in the open places of Yerushalayim, each one with his cane in his hand, because of their great age.

The city's open places will also be full of boys and girls playing there.'

ADONAI-Tzva'ot says, 'This may seem amazing to the survivors in those days, but must it also seem amazing to me?' says ADONAI-Tzva'ot.

ADONAI-Tzva'ot says, 'I will save my people from lands east and west;

I will bring them back, and they will live in Yerushalayim. They will be my people; and I will be their God, with faithfulness and justice.'

"ADONAI-Tzva'ot says, 'Take courage, you who are hearing only now, in these days, these words spoken by the prophets when the foundation was being laid for rebuilding the temple, the house of ADONAI-Tzva'ot.

For prior to that time, there were wages neither for people nor for animals; moreover, it was unsafe for anyone to go out or come in, because of the enemy; for I set all people each against the other.

But from now on, I will not treat the remnant of this people as I did before,' says ADONAI-Tzva'ot.

'Now they will sow in peace, the vine will give its fruit, the ground will produce its yield, the sky will give its dew, and I will cause the remnant of this people to possess all these things.