However, as regards my words and my regulations that I commanded my servants, the prophets, did they not catch up with your fathers? So they returned and said: “According to what Jehovah of armies had in mind to do to us, according to our ways and according to our dealings, that is how he has done with us.”’”​—Zechariah 1:4-6.

However, the restored Jews could raise the question, ‘What about the prophets, like Jeremiah who specifically prophesied about the destruction of Jerusalem and the desolation of the land of Judah? “Did they continue to live?” Are they not dead the same as our disobedient fathers?’ Although the answer to this had to be Yes, still such a fact was no sound reason for the restored Jews to pay no attention to the prophets Haggai and Zechariah whom Jehovah was now raising up in that year 520 B.C.E.

15. (a) Rather than the mortality of those former prophets, what was the important, determining thing in connection with them? (b) So, in what was imitating their fathers’ course sure to result?

¹⁵ The mortal prophets, whom Jehovah used as his inspired mouthpieces to declare his words and his regulations, were not the things upon which to base a sound argument. What Jehovah inspired those prophets to say was the important thing, the determining thing. Did Jehovah’s words by them and his regulations or decrees that he decided upon come true? The fathers of the restored Jews were obliged to answer Yes! The fathers were forced to return or turn around in their thinking and to admit: “According to what Jehovah of armies had in mind to do to us, according to our ways and according to our dealings, that is how he has done with us.” Why, then, should the restored Jews put Jehovah to the test as to whether he meant exactly what he said, as their fathers had done? The outcome was sure to be just as with their fathers, Jehovah’s unfailing words and regulations or decrees would catch up with them; the fulfillment of such pronouncements of Jehovah would in course of time overtake them.