1 Fasting as Yahweh Chooses “Call out from your throat, do not hold back;Raise your voice like a trumpet,And declare to My people their transgressionAnd to the house of Jacob their sins.
2 “Yet they seek Me day by day and find pleasure in knowing My ways,As a nation that has done righteousnessAnd has not forsaken the judgment of their God.They ask Meforrighteous judgments;They find pleasure in the nearness of God.
3 ‘Why have we fasted and You do not see?Whyhave we afflicted our souls and You do not know?’Behold, on the day of your fast you findyourdesire,And oppress all your workers.
4 “Behold, you fast for contention and quarreling and to strike with a wicked fist.You do not fast likeyou dotoday to make your voice heard on high.
5 “Is it a fast like this which I choose, a day for a man to afflict himself?Is it for bowing 58:5Lit his one’s head like a reedAnd for spreading out sackcloth and ashes as a bed?Will you call this a fast, even an acceptable day to Yahweh?
6 “Is this not the fast which I choose,To loosen the bonds of wickedness,To release the bands of 58:6Lit the bar of the yoke the yoke,And to let the oppressed go freeAnd break every 58:6Lit the bar of the yoke yoke?
7 “Is it not to divide your bread 58:7Lit for with the hungryAnd bring the afflicted homeless into the house;When you see the naked, you cover him;And not to hide yourself from your own flesh?
8 “Then your light will break out like the dawn,And your recovery will speedily spring forth;And your righteousness will go before you;The glory of Yahweh will be your rear guard.
9 “Then you will call, and Yahweh will answer;You will cry, and He will say, ‘Here I am.’If you remove the 58:9Lit bar of the yoke yoke from your midst,The 58:9Lit sending out pointing of the finger and speaking wickedness,
10 And if you 58:10Lit furnish offer your soul to the hungryAnd satisfy the soul of the afflicted,Then your light will rise in darknessAnd your thick darknesswill becomelike midday.
11 “And Yahweh will continually guide you,And satisfy your soul in scorched places,And fortify your bones;And you will be like a watered garden,And like a spring of water whose waters do not 58:11Or deceive fail.
12 “Those from among you will rebuild the ancient waste places;You will raise up the foundations ofpastgeneration upon generation;And you will be called the repairer of the breach,The restorer of the pathsfor oneto inhabit.Keeping the Sabbath
13 ¶“If because of the sabbath, you turn your footFrom doing yourowndesire on My holy day,And call the sabbath a delight, the holydayof Yahweh honorable,And honor it, by not doing yourownways,By not finding yourowndesireAnd speakingyour ownword,
14 Then you will take delight in Yahweh,And I will make you ride on the heights of the earth;And I will feed youwiththe inheritance of Jacob your father,For the mouth of Yahweh has spoken.”