Isaiah 58

1Cry out with your throat; do not hold back. Raise your voice like a trumpet, and declare to my people their rebellion, and to the house of Jacob their sins.

2Yet day after day they seek me, and they delight to know my ways, as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness and had not forsaken the justice of its God. They ask me for righteous judgments; they delight in the nearness of God.

3Why have we fasted, and you have not seen? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you do not notice? Look, on the day of your fast you pursue your own pleasure, and you drive all your laborers hard.

4Look, you fast for strife and contention, and to strike with a wicked fist. You are not fasting today to make your voice heard on high.

5Is this the fast that I choose: a day for a man to humble himself? Is it to bow down his head like a reed, and to spread out sackcloth and ashes? Will you call this a fast, and a day acceptable to the LORD?

6Is not this the fast that I choose: to loosen the chains of wickedness, to untie the cords of the yoke, to send the oppressed out free, and to tear off every yoke?

7Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the poor who are cast out into your house? When you see the naked, to cover him, and not hide yourself from your own flesh?

8Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will spring up quickly; your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of Yahweh will be your rear guard.

9Then you will call, and Yahweh will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say, ‘Here I am.’ If you remove from your midst the yoke, the pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness,

10and if you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the afflicted soul, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your gloom will be like noonday.

11And Yahweh will guide you continually, and satisfy your soul in parched places, and strengthen your bones; and you will be like a well-watered garden, and like a spring of water whose waters do not fail.

12Those from among you will rebuild the ancient ruins; you will raise up the foundations of generation after generation, and you will be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of paths for dwelling.

13If you turn back your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your own pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy thing of Yahweh honorable, and honor it by not going your own ways, nor seeking your own pleasure, nor speaking a word,

14then you will delight yourself in Yahweh, and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth; I will feed you with the inheritance of Jacob your father, for the mouth of Yahweh has spoken.