⁵ “Say to all the people of the land and the priests: When you fasted and lamented in the fifth month and in the seventh for these seventy years, was it for me that you fasted?^(A)

¹² Then the angel of the Lord said, “O Lord of hosts, how long will you withhold mercy from Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, with which you have been angry these seventy years?”^(A)

³ and to ask the priests of the house of the Lord of hosts and the prophets, “Should I mourn and practice abstinence in the fifth month, as I have done for so many years?”^(A)

²³ Whatever task you must do, work as if your soul depends on it, as for the Lord and not for humans,

¹⁵ And he died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves but for the one who for their sake died and was raised.

³¹ So, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God.^(A)

¹⁷ For the kingdom of God is not food and drink but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.^{(A) 18} The one who serves Christ in this way is acceptable to God and has human approval.^(B)

⁶ Those who observe the day, observe it for the Lord. Also those who eat, eat for the Lord, since they give thanks to God, while those who abstain, abstain for the Lord and give thanks to God.^(A)

⁷ For we do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves.^{(B) 8} If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. ⁹ For to this end Christ died and lived again, so that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.^(C)

⁵ They do all their deeds to be seen by others, for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long.^(A)