23 Search me, O God, and know my heart!
    (A)Try me and know my thoughts![a]

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Footnotes

  1. Psalm 139:23 Or cares

True and False Fasting

58 “Cry aloud; do not hold back;
    (A)lift up your voice like a trumpet;
(B)declare to my people their transgression,
    to the house of Jacob their sins.
(C)Yet they seek me daily
    and delight to know my ways,
as if they were a nation that did righteousness
    and did not forsake the judgment of their God;
they ask of me righteous judgments;
    they delight to draw near to God.
(D)‘Why have we fasted, and you see it not?
    Why have we humbled ourselves, and you take no knowledge of it?’
Behold, in the day of your fast you seek your own pleasure,[a]
    (E)and oppress all your workers.
Behold, you fast only to quarrel and to fight
    and to hit with a wicked fist.
Fasting like yours this day
    will not make your voice to be heard on high.
(F)Is such the fast that I choose,
    (G)a day for a person to humble himself?
Is it to bow down his head like a reed,
    and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him?
Will you call this a fast,
    and a day acceptable to the Lord?

“Is not this the fast that I choose:
    (H)to loose the bonds of wickedness,
    to undo the straps (I)of the yoke,
to let the oppressed[b] go free,
    and to break every yoke?
Is it not (J)to share your bread with the hungry
    and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover him,
    (K)and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?
(L)Then shall your light break forth like the dawn,
    (M)and your healing shall spring up speedily;
(N)your righteousness shall go before you;
    (O)the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.
Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer;
    you shall cry, and he will say, ‘Here I am.’
If you take away (P)the yoke from your midst,
    (Q)the pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness,
10 (R)if you pour yourself out for the hungry
    and satisfy the desire of the afflicted,
(S)then shall your light rise in the darkness
    and your gloom be as the noonday.
11 And the Lord will guide you continually
    and satisfy your desire in scorched places
    and make your bones strong;
and you shall be (T)like a watered garden,
    like a spring of water,
    whose waters do not fail.
12 (U)And your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt;
    you shall raise up the foundations of many generations;
you shall be called the repairer of the breach,
    the restorer of streets to dwell in.

13 (V)“If you turn back your foot from the Sabbath,
    from doing your pleasure[c] on my holy day,
and call the Sabbath a delight
    and the holy day of the Lord honorable;
if you honor it, not going your own ways,
    or seeking (W)your own pleasure,[d] or talking idly;[e]
14 then you shall take delight in the Lord,
    (X)and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth;[f]
(Y)I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father,
    (Z)for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

Footnotes

  1. Isaiah 58:3 Or pursue your own business
  2. Isaiah 58:6 Or bruised
  3. Isaiah 58:13 Or business
  4. Isaiah 58:13 Or pursuing your own business
  5. Isaiah 58:13 Hebrew or speaking a word
  6. Isaiah 58:14 Or of the land

24 But the king said to Araunah, “No, but I will buy it from you for a price. I will not offer burnt offerings to the Lord my God that cost me nothing.” So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels[a] of silver.

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Footnotes

  1. 2 Samuel 24:24 A shekel was about 2/5 ounce or 11 grams

18 (A)“You shall therefore lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and (B)you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 19 You shall teach them to your children, talking of them when you are sitting in your house, and when you are walking by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.

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One Body with Many Members

12 For just as (A)the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, (B)so it is with Christ. 13 For (C)in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—(D)Jews or Greeks, slaves[a] or free—and (E)all were made to drink of one Spirit.

14 For the body does not consist of one member but of many.

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Footnotes

  1. 1 Corinthians 12:13 For the contextual rendering of the Greek word doulos, see Preface

16 Whoever oppresses the poor to increase his own wealth,
    or gives to the rich, (A)will only come to poverty.

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