by asking the priests who were at the house of the Lord of Hosts as well as the prophets, “Should we mourn and fast in the fifth month as we have done these many years?”

"Talk to everyone in the land, as well as to the priests. Ask them, "When you were fasting and mourning during the fifth and seventh months for the past seventy years, were you really fasting for me?

Even so am I determined now in these days, for to do well unto the house of Judah and Jerusalem, therefore fear ye not.

As well as Hamath, which is by its limit, and Tyre and Zidon, because they are very wise.

Next I eradicated the three shepherds in one month, for I ran out of patience with them and, indeed, they detested me as well.

and it is broken in that day, and know well do the afflicted of the flock who are observing me, that it is a word of Jehovah.

For see, I will put a sheep-keeper over the land, who will have no care for that which is cut off, and will not go in search of the wanderers, or make well what is broken, and he will not give food to that which is ill, but he will take for his food the flesh of the fat, and let their feet be broken.

" 'On that day a well will be opened for the house of David and for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, {to cleanse them from sin and from impurity}.

And in that day living waters will flow out of Jerusalem, half of them toward the eastern sea and the other half toward the western sea; it will be in summer as well as in winter.