Isaiah 58 // Fasting, Justice, and True Prayer

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  • “Shout it aloud, do not hold back.
        Raise your voice like a trumpet.
    Declare to my people their rebellion
        and to the descendants of Jacob their sins.
    For day after day they seek me out;
        they seem eager to know my ways,
    as if they were a nation that does what is right
        and has not forsaken the commands of its God.
    They ask me for just decisions
        and seem eager for God to come near them.
    ‘Why have we fasted,’ they say,
        ‘and you have not seen it?
    Why have we humbled ourselves,
        and you have not noticed?’

    “Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please
        and exploit all your workers.
    Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife,
        and in striking each other with wicked fists.
    You cannot fast as you do today
        and expect your voice to be heard on high.
    Is this the kind of fast I have chosen,
        only a day for people to humble themselves?
    Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed
        and for lying in sackcloth and ashes?
    Is that what you call a fast,
        a day acceptable to the Lord?

    “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
    to loose the chains of injustice
        and untie the cords of the yoke,
    to set the oppressed free
        and break every yoke?
    Is it not to share your food with the hungry
        and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
    when you see the naked, to clothe them,
        and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
    Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
        and your healing will quickly appear;
    then your righteousness[a] will go before you,
        and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.
    Then you will call, and the Lord will answer;
        you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.

    “If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
        with the pointing finger and malicious talk,
    10 and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
        and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
    then your light will rise in the darkness,
        and your night will become like the noonday.
    11 The Lord will guide you always;
        he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
        and will strengthen your frame.
    You will be like a well-watered garden,
        like a spring whose waters never fail.
    12 Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins
        and will raise up the age-old foundations;
    you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls,
        Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.

  • Then the word of the Lord Almighty came to me: “Ask all the people of the land and the priests, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months for the past seventy years, was it really for me that you fasted? And when you were eating and drinking, were you not just feasting for yourselves? Are these not the words the Lord proclaimed through the earlier prophets when Jerusalem and its surrounding towns were at rest and prosperous, and the Negev and the western foothills were settled?’”

    And the word of the Lord came again to Zechariah: “This is what the Lord Almighty said: ‘Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. 10 Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor. Do not plot evil against each other.’

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GOING DEEPER

Recommended resource for going deeper in Lent.

Drew DixonComment