1In the fourth year of King Darius, the word of the LORD came to Zechariah on the fourth day of the ninth month, the month of Chislev.
2Now the people of Bethel had sent Sharezer and Regem-melech, along with their men, to plead before the LORD
3by asking the priests of the house of the LORD of Hosts, as well as the prophets, “Should I weep and fast in the fifth month, as I have done these many years?”
4Then the word of the LORD of Hosts came to me, saying,
5“Ask all the people of the land and the priests, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months for these seventy years, was it really for Me that you fasted?
6And when you were eating and drinking, were you not doing so simply for yourselves?
7Are these not the words that the LORD proclaimed through the earlier prophets, when Jerusalem and its surrounding towns were populous and prosperous, and the Negev and the foothills were inhabited?’”