| 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. |
