A Call to Return to the Lord

1 In the eighth month, in the second year of Darius, the word of theLord came to the prophet Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, son of Iddo, saying, ² “The Lord was very angry with your fathers. ³ Therefore say to them, Thus declares the Lord of hosts: Return to me, says the Lord of hosts, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts. ⁴ Do not be like your fathers, to whom the former prophets cried out, ‘Thus says the Lordof hosts, Return from your evil ways and from your evil deeds.’ But they did not hear or pay attention to me, declares the Lord. ⁵ Your fathers, where are they? And the prophets, do they live forever? ⁶ But my words and my statutes, which I commanded my servants the prophets, did they not overtake your fathers? So they repented and said, ‘As the Lordof hosts purposed to deal with us for our ways and deeds, so has he dealt with us.’”