But as for me, when they were sick, my clothing was sackcloth; I humbled my soul with fasting, But my prayer kept returning to me.

When I wept in my soul with fasting, It became my disgrace.

My knees are weak from fasting, And my flesh has grown lean, without fatness.

So the craftsman encourages the smelter, And he who smooths metal with the hammer encourages him who beats the anvil, Saying of the soldering, “It is good”; And he fastens it with nails, So that it will not totter.

Observances of Fasts

“Cry loudly, do not hold back; Raise your voice like a trumpet, And declare to My people their wrongdoing, And to the house of Jacob their sins.

‘Why have we fasted and You do not see? Why have we humbled ourselves and You do not notice?’ Behold, on the day of your fast you find your desire, And oppress all your workers.

Behold, you fast for contention and strife, and to strike with a wicked fist. You do not fast like you have done today to make your voice heard on high!

Is it a fast like this that I choose, a day for a person to humble himself? Is it for bowing one’s head like a reed And for spreading out sackcloth and ashes as a bed? Will you call this a fast, even an acceptable day to the Lord?

Is this not the fast that I choose: To release the bonds of wickedness, To undo the ropes of the yoke, And to let the oppressed go free, And break every yoke?

They decorate the idol with silver and gold; They fasten it with nails and hammers So that it will not totter.

When they fast, I am not going to listen to their cry; and when they offer burnt offering and grain offering, I am not going to accept them. Rather, I am going to put an end to them by the sword, famine, and plague.”

So you go and read from the scroll, which you have written at my dictation, the words of the Lord to the people at the Lord’s house on a day of fasting. And you shall also read them to all the people of Judah who come from their cities.

Now in the fifth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, in the ninth month, all the people in Jerusalem and all the people who came from the cities of Judah to Jerusalem proclaimed a fast before the Lord.

Then the king went to his palace and spent the night fasting, and no entertainment was brought before him; and his sleep fled from him.

So I gave my attention to the Lord God, to seek Him by prayer and pleading, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes.

Starvation and Drought

Consecrate a fast, Proclaim a solemn assembly; Gather the elders And all the inhabitants of the land To the house of the Lord your God, And cry out to the Lord.

“Yet even now,” declares the Lord, “Return to Me with all your heart, And with fasting, weeping, and mourning;

Blow a trumpet in Zion, Consecrate a fast, proclaim a solemn assembly,

Then the people of Nineveh believed in God; and they called a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest to the least of them.

Their horses are faster than leopards, And quicker than wolves in the evening. Their horsemen charge along, Their horsemen come from afar; They fly like an eagle swooping down to devour.

speaking to the priests who belong to the house of the Lord of armies, and to the prophets, saying, “Shall I weep in the fifth month and fast, as I have done these many years?”

“Say to all the people of the land and to the priests, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months these seventy years, was it actually for Me that you fasted?

“The Lord of armies says this: ‘The fast of the fourth, the fast of the fifth, the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the tenth months will become joy, jubilation, and cheerful festivals for the house of Judah; so love truth and peace.’

And after He had fasted for forty days and forty nights, He then became hungry.

Fasting; The True Treasure; Wealth

“Now whenever you fast, do not make a gloomy face as the hypocrites do, for they distort their faces so that they will be noticed by people when they are fasting. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full.