< Isaiah 58 >
1 “Call with the throat, do not restrain, lift up your voice as a horn, And declare to My people their transgression, And to the house of Jacob their sins;
2 They seek Me day by day, And they desire the knowledge of My ways, As a nation that has done righteousness, And has not forsaken the judgment of its God, They ask of Me judgments of righteousness, They desire the drawing near of God:
3 Why have we fasted, and You have not seen? We have afflicted our soul, and You do not know. Behold, you find pleasure in the day of your fast, And exact all your laborers.
4 Behold, you fast for strife and debate, And to strike with the fist of wickedness, You do not fast as [this] day, To sound your voice in the high place.
5 Is this like the fast that I choose? The day of a man’s afflicting his soul? To bow his head as a reed, And spread out sackcloth and ashes? Do you call this a fast, And a desirable day—to YHWH?
6 Is this not 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 draw off every yoke?
7 Is it not to deal your bread to the hungry, And bring home the wandering poor, That you see the naked and cover him, And do not hide yourself from your own flesh?
8 Then your light breaks forth as the dawn, And your health springs up in haste, Your righteousness has gone before you, The glory of YHWH gathers you.
9 Then you call, and YHWH answers, You cry, and He says, Behold Me. If you turn aside the yoke from your midst, The sending forth of the finger, And the speaking of vanity,
10 And bring out your soul to the hungry, And satisfy the afflicted soul, Then your light has risen in the darkness, And your thick darkness [is] as noon.
11 And YHWH continually leads you, And has satisfied your soul in drought, And He arms your bones, And you have been as a watered garden, And as an outlet of waters, whose waters do not lie.
12 And they have built the ancient ruins from you, You raise up the foundations of many generations, And one calls you, Repairer of the breach, Restorer of paths to rest in.
13 If you turn your foot from the Sabbath, [From] doing your own pleasure on My holy day, And have cried to the Sabbath, A delight, To the holy of YHWH, Honored, And have honored it, without doing your own ways, Without finding your own pleasure, And speaking a word.
14 Then you delight yourself on YHWH, And I have caused you to ride on high places of earth, And have caused you to eat the inheritance of your father Jacob, For the mouth of YHWH has spoken!”
