Zechariah 7:3-5

New Living Translation

³They were to ask this question of the prophets and the priests at the Temple of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies: “Should we continue to mourn and fast each summer on the anniversary of the Temple’s destruction,^[a] as we have done for so many years?”

⁴The Lord of Heaven’s Armies sent me this message in reply: ⁵“Say to all your people and your priests, ‘During these seventy years of exile, when you fasted and mourned in the summer and in early autumn,^[b] was it really for me that you were fasting?

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Footnotes

7:3 Hebrew mourn and fast in the fifth month. The Temple had been destroyed in the fifth month of the ancient Hebrew lunar calendar (August 586 B.c.); see 2 Kgs 25:8.
7:5 Hebrew fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months. The fifth month of the ancient Hebrew lunar calendar usually occurs within the months of July and August. The seventh month usually occurs within the months of September and October; both the Day of Atonement and the Festival of Shelters were celebrated in the seventh month.