1 In the second year of Darius, in the eighth month, the word of the Lord came to the prophet Zechariah, son of Berechiah, son of Iddo:
2 The Lord was very angry with your ancestors.
3 Say to them: Thus says the Lord of hosts, Return to me—oracle of the Lord of hosts—and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts.
4 Do not be like your ancestors to whom the earlier prophets proclaimed: Thus says the Lord of hosts: Turn from your evil ways and from your wicked deeds. But they did not listen or pay attention to me—oracle of the Lord.—
5 Your ancestors, where are they? And the prophets, can they live forever?
6 But my words and my statutes, with which I charged my servants the prophets, did these not overtake your ancestors? Then they repented and admitted: “Just as the Lord of hosts intended to treat us according to our ways and deeds, so the Lord has done.”
7 In the second year of Darius, on the twenty-fourth day of Shebat, the eleventh month, the word of the Lord came to the prophet Zechariah, son of Berechiah, son of Iddo: