³ and to speak with the priests and prophets about whether they must continue their traditional custom of fasting and mourning during the month of August each year, as they had been doing for so long.

⁴ This was the Lord’s reply:

⁵ “When you return to Bethel, say to all your people and your priests, ‘During those seventy years of exile when you fasted and mourned in August and October, were you really in earnest about leaving your sins behind and coming back to me? No, not at all!