So we fasted and petitioned our God about this, and he answered our prayer.

When I heard these things, I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven.

The Israelites Confess Their Sins

On the twenty-fourth day of the same month, the Israelites gathered together, fasting and wearing sackcloth and putting dust on their heads.

The garden had hangings of white and blue linen, fastened with cords of white linen and purple material to silver rings on marble pillars. There were couches of gold and silver on a mosaic pavement of porphyry, marble, mother-of-pearl and other costly stones.

In every province to which the edict and order of the king came, there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting, weeping and wailing. Many lay in sackcloth and ashes.

“Go, gather together all the Jews who are in Susa, and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my attendants will fast as you do. When this is done, I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish.”

Mordecai wrote in the name of King Xerxes, sealed the dispatches with the king’s signet ring, and sent them by mounted couriers, who rode fast horses especially bred for the king.

to establish these days of Purim at their designated times, as Mordecai the Jew and Queen Esther had decreed for them, and as they had established for themselves and their descendants in regard to their times of fasting and lamentation.

You fasten my feet in shackles; you keep close watch on all my paths by putting marks on the soles of my feet.

God assails me and tears me in his anger and gnashes his teeth at me; my opponent fastens on me his piercing eyes.

A trap seizes him by the heel; a snare holds him fast.

He fastens my feet in shackles; he keeps close watch on all my paths.’

But if people are bound in chains, held fast by cords of affliction,

They are joined fast to one another; they cling together and cannot be parted.

Yet when they were ill, I put on sackcloth and humbled myself with fasting. When my prayers returned to me unanswered,

When I weep and fast, I must endure scorn;

My knees give way from fasting; my body is thin and gaunt.

I hold fast to your statutes, Lord; do not let me be put to shame.

even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.

She is a tree of life to those who take hold of her; those who hold her fast will be blessed.

The evil deeds of the wicked ensnare them; the cords of their sins hold them fast.

Bind them always on your heart; fasten them around your neck.

I will clothe him with your robe and fasten your sash around him and hand your authority over to him. He will be a father to those who live in Jerusalem and to the people of Judah.

Blessed is the one who does this— the person who holds it fast, who keeps the Sabbath without desecrating it, and keeps their hands from doing any evil.”

For this is what the Lord says: “To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose what pleases me and hold fast to my covenant—