Isaiah 58

¹Call with the throat, restrain not, As a trumpet lift up thy voice, And declare to My people their transgression, And to the house of Jacob their sins; ²Seeing—Me day by day they seek, And the knowledge of My ways they desire, As a nation that righteousness hath done, And the judgment of its God hath not forsaken, They ask of me judgments of righteousness, The drawing near of God they desire:

³‘Why have we fasted, and Thou hast not seen? We have afflicted our soul, and Thou knowest not.’ Lo, in the day of your fast ye find pleasure, And all your labours ye exact. ⁴Lo, for strife and debate ye fast, And to smite with the fist of wickedness, Ye fast not as to -day, To sound in the high place your voice. ⁵Like this is the fast that I choose? The day of a man’s afflicting his soul? To bow as a reed his head, And sackcloth and ashes spread out? This dost thou call a fast, And a desirable day—to Jehovah? ⁶Is not this the fast that I chose—To loose the bands of wickedness, To shake off the burdens of the yoke, And to send out the oppressed free, And every yoke ye draw off? ⁷Is it not to deal to the hungry thy bread, And the mourning poor bring home, That thou seest the naked and cover him, And from thine own flesh hide not thyself?

⁸Then broken up as the dawn is thy light, And thy health in haste springeth up, Gone before thee hath thy righteousness, The honour of Jehovah doth gather thee. ⁹Then thou callest, and Jehovah answereth, Thou criest, and He saith, ‘Behold Me.’ If thou turn aside from thy midst the yoke, The sending forth of the finger, And the speaking of vanity, ¹⁰And dost bring out to the hungry thy soul, And the afflicted soul dost satisfy, Then risen in the darkness hath thy light, And thy thick darkness is as noon. ¹¹And Jehovah doth lead thee continually, And hath satisfied in drought thy soul, And thy bones He armeth, And thou hast been as a watered garden, And as an outlet of waters, whose waters lie not. ¹²And they have built out of thee the wastes of old, The foundations of many generations thou raisest up, And one calleth thee, ‘Repairer of the breach, Restorer of paths to rest in.’

¹³If thou dost turn from the sabbath thy foot, Doing thine own pleasure on My holy day, And hast cried to the sabbath, ‘A delight,’ To the holy of Jehovah, ‘Honoured,’ And hast honoured it, without doing thine own ways, Without finding thine own pleasure, And speaking a word. ¹⁴Then dost thou delight thyself on Jehovah, And I have caused thee to ride on high places of earth, And have caused thee to eat the inheritance of Jacob thy father, For the mouth of Jehovah hath spoken!

Chapter 59