Speak 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?
Tell everyone — the regular people and the religious leaders — 'When you've been fasting and mourning during those specific months for the past seventy years, were you actually doing it for me? Like, really for me?'
God's asking the real question: are your spiritual practices actually about connecting with him, or just going through the motions?
📜 Historical Context — Why was this verse written?
The prophet Zechariah wrote this message to the Jewish community in Judah and Jerusalem who had returned from Babylonian exile, around 520 BCE. It responded to a delegation from Bethel asking if they should continue observing traditional fasts that commemorated events during their exile, now that the temple was being rebuilt.
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