and to speak to the priests of the house of Yahweh of Hosts, and to the prophets, saying, "Should I weep in the fifth month, separating myself, as I have done these so many years?"
"Speak to all the people of the land, and to the priests, saying, 'When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and in the seventh month for these seventy years, did you at all fast to me, really to me?
Aren't these the words which Yahweh proclaimed by the former prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and in prosperity, and its cities around her, and the South and the lowland were inhabited?'"
Yes, they made their hearts as hard as flint, lest they might hear the law, and the words which Yahweh of Hosts had sent by his Spirit by the former prophets. Therefore great wrath came from Yahweh of Hosts.
"but I will scatter them with a whirlwind among all the nations which they have not known. Thus the land was desolate after them, so that no man passed through nor returned: for they made the pleasant land desolate."