True Fasting: Justice, Mercy, and Sabbath Blessing
Isaiah 58:1-14
1Cry aloud; do not hold back. Lift up your voice like a trumpet and declare to my people their transgression and to the house of Jacob their sin.2They seek me day after day and delight to know my ways, as though they were a nation that practiced righteousness and did not forsake the justice of its God. They ask me for righteous judgments and delight in drawing near to God.3Why have we fasted if you have not seen? Why have we afflicted our soul if you do not know? On the day of your fast you pursue pleasure and you oppress all your workers.4You fast only for strife and contention and to strike with a wicked fist. Such is not the fast that makes your voice heard on high.5Is this the fast I choose, a day for a person to afflict his soul? Is it to bow the head like a reed and to spread out sackcloth and ashes? Will you call this a fast and an acceptable day to the LORD?6Is not this the fast I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to untie the straps of the yoke, to set the oppressed free, and to break every yoke?7Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and to bring the homeless poor into your house, to cover the naked when you see him, and not to hide yourself from your own kin?8Then your light will break forth like the dawn, your healing will appear quickly, your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard.9Then you will call and the LORD will answer; you will cry for help and he will say, Here I am. If you remove the yoke from among you, stop pointing the finger, and cease speaking evil,10if you offer yourself to the hungry and satisfy the afflicted, then your light will rise in darkness and your gloom will become like midday.11The LORD will guide you continually and satisfy your soul in parched places; he will strengthen your bones, and you will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.12Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins; you will raise up the foundations of many generations; you will be called the repairer of broken walls, the restorer of streets with dwellings.13If you refrain from trampling the Sabbath by pursuing your own interests on my holy day, if you call the Sabbath a delight and honor it as holy to the LORD, if you honor it by not going your own ways or seeking your own pleasure or speaking idle words,14then you will delight yourself in the LORD, and I will make you ride on the heights of the land; I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.