Isaiah 58:1-5

Revised Standard Version

58 “Cry aloud, spare not,
lift up your voice like a trumpet;
declare to my people their transgression,
    to the house of Jacob their sins.
² 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 ordinance of their God;
they ask of me righteous judgments,
    they delight to draw near to God.
³ ‘Why have we fasted, and thou seest it not?
    Why have we humbled ourselves, and thou takest no knowledge of it?’
Behold, in the day of your fast you seek your own pleasure,^[a]
    and oppress all your workers.
⁴ Behold, you fast only to quarrel and to fight
    and to hit with wicked fist.
Fasting like yours this day
    will not make your voice to be heard on high.
⁵ Is such the fast that I choose,
    a day for a man to humble himself?
Is it to bow down his head like a rush,
    and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him?
Will you call this a fast,
    and a day acceptable to the Lord?