Zechariah 7:1
And it came to pass in the fourth year of king Darius, that the word of the LORD came unto Zechariah in the fourth day of the ninth month, even in Chisleu; And it came to pass in the fourth year of king Darius, that the word of the LORD came unto Zechariah in the fourth day of the ninth month, even in Chisleu;
The word of the Lord came to Zechariah in the fourth year of King Darius, on the fourth day of the ninth month, Chisleu. That dating anchors the message that follows to a definite moment in the restoration period.
The occasion was that Sherezer and Regem-melech with their men had been sent to the house of God to pray before the Lord. They came to ask the priests and the prophets whether they should continue weeping in the fifth month and separating themselves as they had done for so many years. God's answer turned the question back upon the motive of their fasting and mourning in the fifth and seventh months through those seventy years, asking whether they had fasted to Him at all. He exposed their eating and drinking as done for themselves rather than for Him.
The answer recalled that they should have heard the words the Lord had proclaimed through the former prophets when Jerusalem was inhabited and prosperous, with the cities around it and the south and the plain also inhabited. In place of mere outward observance, it conveyed God's command to execute true judgment and show mercy and compassion every man to his brother. It charged them to oppress not the widow, nor the fatherless, the stranger, nor the poor, and to let none imagine evil against his brother in the heart.