ZachaYahu (Zachariah) — 7
A Call to Justice and Mercy
1 During fourth year of King Darius’s reign, another message came to Zakaryahu from 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄_YAHUAH.
2 The people of Bathal had sent Sharazar and Ragammalach, along with their attendants, to seek 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄_YAHUAH’s favor.
3 They were to ask this question of the Nabym and the Kuhanym at the Temple of 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄_YAHUAH Tsaba'ut: “Should we continue to mourn and fast each summer on the anniversary of the Temple’s destruction, as we have done for so many years?”
4 Then 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄_YAHUAH Tsaba'ut sent me this message in reply:
5 “Say to all your people and your Kuhanym, ‘During these seventy years of exile, when you fasted and mourned in the summer and in early autumn, was it really for me that you were fasting?
6 And even now in your Qadash festivals, are you not eating and drinking just to please yourselves?
7 Is this not the same message 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄_YAHUAH proclaimed through the Nabyms in years past when Yahushalam and the towns of Yahudah were bustling with people, and the Nagab and the foot hills of Yahudah were well populated?’”
8 Then this message came to Zakaryahu from 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄_YAHUAH:
9 “This is what 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄_YAHUAH Tsaba'ut Dabar: Judge fairly, and show mercy and kindness to one another.
10 Do not oppress widows, orphans, foreigners, and the poor, and do not scheme against each other.
11 “Your ancestors refused to listen to this message. They stubbornly turned away and put their fingers in their ears to keep them from hearing.
12 They made their hearts as hard as stone, so they could not hear the instructions or the messages that 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄_YAHUAH Tsaba'ut had sent them by His RUACH through the earlier Nabyms. That is why 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄_YAHUAH Tsaba'ut was so angry with them.
13 “Since they refused to listen when I called to them, I would not listen when they called to me, says 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄_YAHUAH Tsaba'ut.
14 As with a whirlwind, I scattered them among the distant nations, where they lived as strangers. Their land became so desolate that no one even traveled through it. They turned their pleasant land into a desert.”