Hearts like Flint

¹In the fourth year of King Darius, the word of the Lord came to Zechariah on the fourth day of the ninth month, which is Chislev. ² Now the town of Bethel had sent Sharezer and Regemmelech and ^[a]their men to ^[b]seek the favor of the Lord, ³ speaking to the priests who belong to the house of the Lord of hosts, and to the prophets, saying, “Shall I weep in the fifth month ^[c]and abstain, as I have done these many years?” ⁴ Then the word of the Lord of hosts came to me, saying, ⁵ “Say to all the people of the land and to the priests, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months ^[d]these seventy years, was it actually for Me that you fasted? ⁶ When you eat and drink, ^[e]do you not eat for yourselves and do you not drink for yourselves? ⁷ Are not these the words which the Lord proclaimed by the former prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and ^[f]prosperous along with its cities around it, and the ^[g]Negev and the ^[h]foothills were inhabited?’”

⁸ Then the word of the Lord came to Zechariah saying, ⁹ “Thus has the Lord of hosts said, ‘Dispense true justice and practice kindness and compassion each to his brother; ¹⁰ and do not oppress the widow or the ^[i]orphan, the ^[j]stranger or the poor; and do not devise evil in your hearts against one another.’ ¹¹ But they refused to pay attention and ^[k]turned a stubborn shoulder and ^[l]stopped their ears from hearing. ¹² They made their hearts like ^[m]flint ^[n]so that they could not hear the law and the words which the Lord of hosts had sent by His Spirit through the former prophets; therefore great wrath came from the Lord of hosts. ¹³ And just as He called and they would not listen, so they called and I would not listen,” says the Lord of hosts; ¹⁴ “but I ^[o]scattered them with a storm wind among all the nations whom they have not known. Thus the land is desolated behind them ^[p]so that no one went back and forth, for they made the pleasant land desolate.”