The Chosen Fast

¹Cry aloud, do not hold back;

lift up your voice like a trumpet,

and show My people their transgression

and the house of Jacob their sins.

²Yet they seek Me daily

and delight to know My ways,

as a nation that has done righteousness

and has not forsaken the ordinance of their God.

They ask Me for the ordinances of justice;

they take delight in approaching God.

³“Why have we fasted

and You do not see?

Why have we humbled ourselves

and You take no notice?”

Behold, in the day of your fast you find your desire

and are exacting on all your laborers.

⁴Behold, you fast for strife and debate,

and to strike with the fist of wickedness.

You do not fast as you do this day,

to make your voice to be heard on high.

⁵Is it such a fast that I have chosen,

a day for a man to humble himself?

Is it to bow down his head as a bulrush,

and to spread out sackcloth and ashes under him?

Will you call this a fast

and an acceptable day to the Lord ?

⁶Is not this the fast that I have chosen:

to loose the bonds of wickedness,

to undo the heavy burdens,

and to let the oppressed go free,

and break every yoke?

⁷Is it not to divide your bread with the hungry

and bring the poor who are outcasts into your house?

When you see the naked, to cover him

and not hide yourself from your own flesh?

⁸Then your light shall break forth as the morning,[#Job 11:17]

and your healing shall spring forth quickly,

and your righteousness shall go before you;

the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.

⁹Then you shall call, and the Lord shall answer;

you shall cry, and He shall say, Here I am.

If you take away the yoke from your midst,

the pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness,

¹⁰and if you give yourself to the hungry

and satisfy the afflicted soul,

then your light shall rise in obscurity,

and your darkness shall become as the noonday.

¹¹And the Lord shall guide you continually,

and satisfy your soul in drought,

and strengthen your bones;

and you shall be like a watered garden,

and like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.

¹²Those from among you shall rebuild the old waste places;

you shall raise up the foundations of many generations;

and you shall be called, the Repairer of the Breach,

the Restorer of Paths in which to Dwell.

¹³If because of the Sabbath you turn away your foot

from doing your pleasure on My holy day,

and call the Sabbath a delight,

the holy day of the Lord honorable,

and honor it, not doing your own ways,

nor finding your own pleasure, nor speaking your own words,

¹⁴then you shall delight yourself in the Lord ,[#Job 22:26]

and I will cause you to ride upon the high places of the earth,

and feed you with the inheritance of Jacob your father.

For the mouth of the Lord has spoken it.