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Summary

Zechariah 7:1–3 – A question about fasting

What happens: Delegates come from Bethel to ask priests and prophets whether they should keep mourning and fasting in the fifth month as they have done for years.

What it means: Religious habit raises real questions when seasons change. God invites His people to seek His will rather than cling to custom. Worship must be directed to God, not to tradition.

Zechariah 7:4–7 – Did you fast for Me?

What happens: God asks whether their fasts were truly for Him. He reminds them of earlier calls to listen to the prophets while the land was still inhabited.

What it means: God desires hearts, not empty ritual. Worship without obedience is hollow. God’s word has been clear, and ignoring it leads to loss.

Zechariah 7:8–14 – Justice and mercy refused

What happens: God commands justice, kindness, and compassion, and to not oppress the vulnerable. The ancestors refused, made their hearts hard, and God scattered them among nations. The pleasant land became desolate.

What it means: God is just and defends the weak. Hard hearts sow exile and ruin. Covenant faith is social and personal, marked by mercy and truth.

Application

  • Examine your practices to see if they are truly for God.
  • Pair worship with justice, mercy, and honesty.
  • Refuse hard-heartedness toward God’s word and the vulnerable.

Bible

1And it came to pass in the fourth year of king Darius, that the word of the LORD came unto Zechariah in the fourth day of the ninth month, even in Chisleu;

2When they had sent unto the house of God Sherezer and Regemmelech, and their men, to pray before the LORD,

3And to speak unto the priests which were in the house of the LORD of hosts, and to the prophets, saying, Should I weep in the fifth month, separating myself, as I have done these so many years?

4Then came the word of the LORD of hosts unto me, saying,

5Speak unto all the people of the land, and to the priests, saying, When ye fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh month, even those seventy years, did ye at all fast unto me, even to me?

6And when ye did eat, and when ye did drink, did not ye eat for yourselves, and drink for yourselves?

7Should ye not hear the words which the LORD hath cried by the former prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and in prosperity, and the cities thereof round about her, when men inhabited the south and the plain?

8And the word of the LORD came unto Zechariah, saying,

9Thus speaketh the LORD of hosts, saying, Execute true judgment, and shew mercy and compassions every man to his brother:

10And oppress not the widow, nor the fatherless, the stranger, nor the poor; and let none of you imagine evil against his brother in your heart.

11But they refused to hearken, and pulled away the shoulder, and stopped their ears, that they should not hear.

12Yea, they made their hearts as an adamant stone, lest they should hear the law, and the words which the LORD of hosts hath sent in his spirit by the former prophets: therefore came a great wrath from the LORD of hosts.

13Therefore it is come to pass, that as he cried, and they would not hear; so they cried, and I would not hear, saith the LORD of hosts:

14But I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations whom they knew not. Thus the land was desolate after them, that no man passed through nor returned: for they laid the pleasant land desolate.

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