Zechariah 7:8-14 - Disobedience, The Cause Of Exile

⁸ This message from the LORD came to Zechariah again: ⁹ "This is what the LORD of the Heavenly Armies says: "Administer true justice, and show gracious love and mercy toward each other. ¹⁰ You are not to wrong the widow, orphans, the foreigner, or the poor, and you are not to plan evil against each other. ¹¹ But they refused to pay attention, turned their backs, and stopped listening. ¹² They made their hearts hard like a diamond, to keep from obeying the Law and the messages that the LORD of the Heavenly Armies sent by his Spirit through the former prophets. ¹³ Therefore, just as when I cried out and they would not listen, so also they will cry out, and I will not listen,' says the LORD of the Heavenly Armies. ¹⁴ "I will scatter them to all of the nations, which they have not known.'" Now the earth was left desolate after them. As a result, no one came or went because they had turned a pleasant land into a desert.