Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another

Zechariah 7:1-14

Should I mourn and fast in the fifth month, as I have done for so many years? 

Then the word of the Lord Almighty came to me: “Ask all the people of the land and the priests, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months for the past seventy years, was it really for me that you fasted?

This is what the Lord Almighty said: ‘Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor. Do not plot evil against each other.’

They made their hearts as hard as flint and would not listen to the law or to the words that the Lord Almighty had sent by his Spirit through the earlier prophets. So the Lord Almighty was very angry.

When I called, they did not listen; so when they called, I would not listen,’ says the Lord Almighty. 

This is how they made the pleasant land desolate.

The date is 7 December 518. 

Some men come to the Temple to ask about keeping fasts. Zechariah does not give a straightforward answer. It is the purpose of fasting that really matters. He challenges their motives; they have not obeyed the commands God gave through the earlier prophets. He reminds them of the covenant they have broken. Because they refused to listen to God. God did not answer their prayers, and they suffered exile.

Why?

The original ceremony becomes a custom, then the fast is meaningless to the people and before the Lord.

God's purpose is to obey God's command and show mercy and compassion to one another.

Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor. Do not plot evil against each other. These are the way we have to follow in my life.

How?

Do and meditate the word of the Lord, and obey God's word in our daily life. Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another.