IF YOU HAVE TO ASK...

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Now the people of Bethel had sent...to entreat the favor of the Lord, saying to the priests of the house of the Lord of hosts and the prophets, "Should I weep and abstain in the fifth month, as I have done for so many years?" Then the word of the Lord of hosts came to me: "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? And the word of the Lord came to Zechariah, saying, "Thus says the Lord of hosts, Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another, do not oppress the widow, the fatherless, the sojourner, or the poor, and let none of you devise evil against another in your heart." But they refused to pay attention and turned a stubborn shoulder and stopped their ears that they might not hear. They made their hearts diamond-hard lest they should hear the law and the words that the Lord of hosts had sent by his Spirit through the former prophets. Therefore great anger came from the Lord of hosts.

Zechariah 7:2‭-‬5‭, ‬8‭-‬11 ESV

¶The people in Bethel of Judah still believed their relation with God depended on how well they fasted. Meanwhile they ignored the fatherless, widows, immigrants, and allowed evil to go unchecked. It seems that Zechariah's answer to their question "should I weep..." would have been "examine your hearts, look around you, see the needs, and then decide for yourselves if you should weep." In the prayers of Nehemiah in Nehemiah chapter 1, and of Daniel in Daniel chapter 9, weeping in sackcloth and ashes were the obvious responses.They didn't have to ask. It appears that, after seventy years of exile in Babylon and Persia, God's people were still no closer to truly living as a holy nation. We are still unable to do in the flesh what God can only accomplish by His spirit. God please break my diamond-hard heart and put in its place a soft heart of flesh.

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