Zechariah 7:1-7

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. ²Now the town of Bethel had sent Sharezer and Regemmelech and their men to seek the favor of the Lord, ³speaking to the priests who belong to the house of the Lord of armies, and to the prophets, saying, “Shall I weep in the fifth month and fast, as I have done these many years?” ⁴Then the word of the Lord of armies came to me, saying, ⁵“Say to all the people of the land and to the priests, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months these seventy years, was it actually for Me that you fasted? ⁶And when you eat and drink, do you not eat for yourselves and drink for yourselves? ⁷Are these not the words which the Lord proclaimed by the former prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and carefree along with its cities around it, and the Negev and the foothills were inhabited?’ ”