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Chapter 58 |
| 1 | Cry aloud,
spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew my people their
transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins. |
| 2 | Yet they seek
me daily, and delight to know my ways, as a nation that did righteousness, and
forsook not the ordinance of their God: they ask of me the ordinances of
justice; they take delight in approaching to God. |
| 3 | Wherefore have
we fasted, say they, and thou seest not? wherefore have we afflicted our soul,
and thou takest no knowledge? Behold, in the day of your fast ye find pleasure,
and exact all your labours. |
|
4 | Behold, ye fast for strife and debate,
and to smite with the fist of wickedness: ye shall not fast as ye do this day,
to make your voice to be heard on high. |
|
5 | Is it such a fast that I
have chosen? a day for a man to afflict his soul? is it to bow down his head as
a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? wilt thou call this a
fast, and an acceptable day to the LORD? |
|
6 | Is not this the fast that I
have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and
to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? |
| 7 | Is it not
to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out
to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou
hide not thyself from thine own flesh? |
| 8 | Then shall thy light break
forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily: and thy
righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the LORD shall be thy
rereward. |
| 9
| Then shalt thou call, and the LORD shall answer; thou
shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am. If thou take away from the midst of
thee the yoke, the putting forth of the finger, and speaking vanity; |
| 10 |
And if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul;
then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noon
day: |
| 11 |
And the LORD shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy
soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered
garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not. |
| 12 | And they
that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shalt raise up the
foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the
breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in. |
|
13 | If thou turn away thy
foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the
sabbath a delight, the holy of the LORD, honourable; and shalt honour him, not
doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own
words: |
| 14
| Then shalt thou delight thyself in the LORD; and I will
cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the
heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it. |
