Going without Food Pleases God
58 “Cry with a loud voice. Do not hold back. Raise your voice like a horn, and show My people their wrong-doing and the family of Jacob their sins. 2 Yet they look for Me day by day, and are happy to know My ways, as a nation that has done what is right and good, and has not turned away from the Law of their God. They ask Me to be fair in what I decide, and they are happy to come near to God. 3 They say, ‘Why have we gone without food, and You do not see it? Why have we put away our pride, and You do not know it?’ See, on the day you do not eat, you do what you want to do, and make it hard for all your workers. 4 See, while you go without food you argue and fight and hit with a sinful hand. Going without food as you do today will not help your voice to be heard on high. 5 Is it a time without eating like this that I choose, a day for a man to put away his pride? Is it for bowing his head like a piece of grass, and to spread ashes and cloth made from hair for his bed? Will you call this time without eating a day that pleases the Lord? 6 Is not the time without eating which I choose, a time to take off the chains of sin, and to take the heavy load of sin off the neck? Is it not a time to let those who suffer under a sinful power go free, and to break every load from their neck? 7 Is it not a time to share your food with the hungry, and bring the poor man into your house who has no home of his own? Is it not a time to give clothes to the person you see who has no clothes, and a time not to hide yourself from your own family? 8 Then your light will break out like the early morning, and you will soon be healed. Your right and good works will go before you. And the shining-greatness of the Lord will keep watch behind you. 9 Then you will call, and the Lord will answer. You will cry, and He will say, ‘Here I am.’ If you take the weight of sin away, and stop putting the blame on others and stop speaking sinful things, 10 and if you give what you have to the hungry, and fill the needs of those who suffer, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your darkness will be like the brightest time of day. 11 The Lord will always lead you. He will meet the needs of your soul in the dry times and give strength to your body. You will be like a garden that has enough water, like a well of water that never dries up. 12 And your cities which were destroyed long ago will be built again. You will set up the stones of the bases of the old buildings. You will be called the one who builds again the broken walls, and who makes the streets on which people live like new.
13 “If you keep from doing what pleases you on the Day of Rest, on My holy day and call the Day of Rest a happy time, and respect the holy day of the Lord, and if you honor it by turning from your own ways, and from following your own desire and by not talking in a foolish way, 14 then you will have joy in the Lord. I will cause you to ride on the high places of the earth. And I will feed you with the best from the land given to your father Jacob. The mouth of the Lord has spoken.”
