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Zechariah 7 :: English Standard Version (ESV)

A Call for Justice and Mercy

Zec 7:1

Zec 7:1In the fourth year of King Darius, the word of the LORD came to Zechariah on the fourth day of the ninth month, which is Chislev.

Zec 7:2

Zec 7:2Now the people of Bethel had sent Sharezer and Regem-melech and their men to entreat the favor of the LORD,

Zec 7:3

Zec 7:3saying to the priests of the house of the LORD of hosts and the prophets, “Should I weep and abstain in the fifth month, as I have done for so many years?”

Zec 7:4

Zec 7:4Then the word of the LORD of hosts came to me:

Zec 7:5

Zec 7:5“Say to all the people of the land and the priests, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth month and in the seventh, for these seventy years, was it for me that you fasted?

Zec 7:6

Zec 7:6And when you eat and when you drink, do you not eat for yourselves and drink for yourselves?

Zec 7:7

Zec 7:7Were not these the words that the LORD proclaimed by the former prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and prosperous, with her cities around her, and the South and the lowland were inhabited?’”

Zec 7:8

Zec 7:8And the word of the LORD came to Zechariah, saying,

Zec 7:9

Zec 7:9“Thus says the LORD of hosts, Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another,

Zec 7:10

Zec 7:10do not oppress the widow, the fatherless, the sojourner, or the poor, and let none of you devise evil against another in your heart.”

Zec 7:11

Zec 7:11But they refused to pay attention and turned a stubborn shoulder and stopped their ears that they might not hear.[fn]

Zec 7:12

Zec 7:12They made their hearts diamond-hard lest they should hear the law and the words that the LORD of hosts had sent by his Spirit through the former prophets. Therefore great anger came from the LORD of hosts.

Zec 7:13

Zec 7:13“As I[fn] called, and they would not hear, so they called, and I would not hear,” says the LORD of hosts,

Zec 7:14

Zec 7:14“and I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations that they had not known. Thus the land they left was desolate, so that no one went to and fro, and the pleasant land was made desolate.”
See the ESV Preface (Especially for Parenthesis, Brackets, & Asterisks).
ESV Footnotes
Hebrew and made their ears too heavy to hear
Hebrew he
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The Holy Bible, English Standard Version copyright © 2001, 2007, 2011, 2016 by Crossway Books and Bibles, a Publishing Ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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For more information on this translation, see the ESV Preface.

Zechariah Chapter 7 — Additional Translations:

King James Version New King James Version New Living Translation New International Version Christian Standard Bible New American Standard Bible 2020 New American Standard Bible 1995 Legacy Standard Bible Amplified Bible New English Translation Revised Standard Version American Standard Version Young's Literal Translation Darby Translation Webster's Bible Hebrew Names Version Latin Vulgate Westminster Leningrad Codex Septuagint Smith Van Dyck Arabic Bible Open New Arabic Version Brenton's English Septuagint Reina Valera 1909 Reina-Valera 1960 Bible in Basic English Chinese Traditional Union Espanol Moderno Korean Holy Bible Louis Segond German Luther Russian Synodal Translation Sagradas Escrituras

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