7 ¹ In the fourth year of King Darius, the word of Yahweh came to Zechariah in the fourth day of the ninth month, which is Chislev. 7 ² Now the people of Bethel had sent Sharezer and Regem-melech and their men, to entreat the favour of Yahweh, 7 ³ and to ask the priests of the house of Yahweh of hosts and the prophets, "Should I mourn and fast in the fifth month, as I have done for so many years?" 7 ⁴ Then the word of Yahweh of hosts came to me; 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? 7 ⁶ And when you eat and when you drink, do you not eat for yourselves and drink for yourselves? 7 ⁷ When Jerusalem was inhabited and in prosperity, with her cities round about her, and the South and the lowland were inhabited, were not these the words which Yahweh proclaimed by the former prophets?"