Ésaïe 58

The fast that God chooses

¹Shout with all your strength; hold nothing back. \q Let your voice ring out like a ram’s horn. \q Make known to my people how they have rebelled, \q and to the house of Jacob what their sins are. ²Day after day they come looking for me \q and seem glad to learn my ways, \q acting like a nation that does righteousness and has not turned away from the justice of its God. \q They ask me for rulings that are right; \q drawing near to God gives them pleasure. ³“We have fasted,” they say, “so why do you not see? \q We have humbled ourselves, so why do you not notice?” \q But look: on the very day you fast, you pursue your own business \q and drive all your laborers hard. ⁴Look, you fast, and then you wrangle and brawl \q and hit out with a vicious fist. \q Fasting the way you do now \q will never carry your voice up to the heights. ⁵Do you think this is the fast I choose: \q a day when people deny themselves, \q droop their heads like a bulrush, and make their bed on sackcloth and ashes? \q Do you call that a fast, \q a day that wins the favor of the LORD? ⁶No, this is the fast I choose: \q loose the bonds that wickedness has tied, \q untie the ropes of the yoke, \q send the crushed away free, \q and tear every yoke in two. ⁷Is it not to break your bread with someone who is hungry, \q to take the wandering poor into your home, \q to clothe the naked person you meet, \q and never to turn your back on your own kin? ⁸Then like the dawn your light will break forth, \q and your healing will spring up without delay. \q Your righteousness will march ahead of you, \q and the glory of the LORD will guard you from behind. ⁹Then when you call, the LORD will answer; \q when you cry out for help, he will say, “I am here.” \q If you do away with the yoke among you, \q the finger pointed in scorn, and words that do harm, ¹⁰if you give of yourself to the hungry \q and meet the needs of those who suffer, \q then your light will dawn in the darkness, \q and your gloom will be like the brightness of midday.^{a 11}The LORD will guide you without ceasing. \q He will satisfy your hunger in a sunbaked land \q and give strength to your bones. \q You will be like a garden with plenty of water, \q like a spring whose flow never stops. ¹²Your people will build again the ruins left from long ago; \q you will raise up foundations laid generations back. \q You will be named the one who closes the gap in the wall, \q the one who makes the roads fit to live beside. ¹³If you hold back your steps on the Sabbath \q and do not chase your own interests on my holy day; \q if you name the Sabbath a delight, the holy day of the LORD a day to honor, \q and honor it by leaving your own paths, your own pursuits, and your deal-making aside,^{b 14}then you will find joy in the LORD. \q I will set you astride the high places of the land \q and nourish you from the inheritance of Jacob your father. \q For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.