1Cry aloud, do not hold back. Lift up your voice like a trumpet. Show my people how they have rebelled, and show the house of Jacob their sins.
2Yet they look for me every day, and they delight to know my ways, like a nation that did righteousness and did not forsake the law of its God. They ask me for just decisions; they delight to come near to God.
3They say, "Why have we fasted, and you do not see it? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you take no notice?" Look, on the day of your fast you do as you please, and you drive on all your workers.
4Look, you fast for quarrelling and arguing, and to strike with a wicked fist. You must not fast as you do today, if you want your voice to be heard on high.
5Is this the kind of fast I have chosen? Only a day for a man to humble himself? Is it bowing down his head like a reed, and lying on sackcloth and ashes? Will you call this a fast, a day the LORD accepts?
6Is not this the fast that I have chosen: to loosen the chains of wickedness, to untie the heavy loads, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?
7Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and to bring the poor who have no home into your house? When you see someone naked, cover him, and do not hide yourself from your own flesh and blood.
8Then your light will break out like the morning, and your healing will spring up quickly. Your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the LORD will guard you from behind.
9Then you will call, and the LORD will answer. You will cry out, and he will say, "Here I am." If you take away from among you the yoke, the pointing finger, and empty talk;
10and if you give yourself to the hungry, and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will be like noon.
11The LORD will guide you always. He will satisfy you in dry places, and make your bones strong. You will be like a watered garden, like a spring of water whose waters never fail.
12Your people will build up the old ruins. You will raise up the foundations laid long ago. You will be called The Repairer of the Broken Wall, The Restorer of Streets to Live in.
13If you turn your foot away from breaking the sabbath, and from doing as you please on my holy day; if you call the sabbath a delight, and the LORD's holy day honourable; and if you honour him by not going your own ways, not doing as you please, and not talking idly;
14then you will delight yourself in the LORD. I will make you ride on the high places of the earth, and feed you with the inheritance of Jacob your father. The mouth of the LORD has spoken it.