1 "Shout from the throat, do not hold back; raise your voice like a trumpet. Tell my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins.
2 Day after day they seek me and take pleasure in knowing my ways, as if they were a nation that had done what is right and had not abandoned the justice of its God. They ask me for righteous rulings; they take pleasure in drawing near to God.
3 'Why have we fasted,' they say, 'if you do not see it? Why have we humbled ourselves if you take no notice?' See, on your fast day you pursue your own business and drive all your laborers hard.
4 See, your fasting ends in quarrels and brawls and in striking out with a wicked fist. You cannot fast as you do today and expect your voice to be heard on high.
5 Is this the kind of fast I choose, a day for a person to humble himself? Is it for hanging one's head like a bulrush and lying down on sackcloth and ashes? Is this what you call a fast, a day the LORD will accept?
6 Is not this the fast I choose: to untie the knots of wickedness, to loosen the cords of the yoke, to set the crushed free and to snap every yoke?
7 Is it not to break your bread with the hungry and take the homeless poor into your house, to clothe the naked when you see them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
8 Then your light will burst out like the dawn, and your healing will sprout up quickly; your righteousness will march ahead of you, and the glory of the LORD will guard you from behind.
9 Then you will call, and the LORD will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say, 'Here I am.' If you get rid of the yoke among you, the pointing finger and the malicious talk,
10 if you give of yourself to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your gloom will become like midday.
11 The LORD will guide you always; he will satisfy you in sun-scorched places and give strength to your bones. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose water never runs dry.
12 Some of your people will rebuild the ancient ruins; you will raise up foundations laid generations ago. You will be called the Mender of Broken Walls, the Restorer of Streets to Live In.
13 If you hold back your foot on the Sabbath from doing as you please on my holy day, if you call the Sabbath a delight and the LORD's holy day honorable, and if you honor it by not going your own ways, not pursuing your own business, not talking idly,
14 then you will find your delight in the LORD, and I will make you ride on the heights of the land and feed you with the inheritance of your father Jacob; for the mouth of the LORD has spoken."