Zechariah 6-8

“When you fasted and mourned in the fifth month and in the seventh, for these seventy years, was it for me that you fasted?” (7:5).  The returned exiles in Judah wondered if they should keep up the regular fasting and mourning they had practiced in Babylon.  But through Zechariah, the Lord questioned the point of their fasting.  Rather than continue a ritual, God asked them to change their hearts. “Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another, do not oppress the widow, the fatherless, the sojourner, or the poor” (7:9). 

“Let none of you devise evil against another in your heart” (7:10).  We demonstrate our love for God in how we respect and love our neighbor (I John 4:7).