1Shout aloud without restraint;
lift up your voice like a trumpet.
Call my people to account for their transgression
and the house of Jacob for their sins,
2although they ask counsel of me day by day
and say they delight in knowing my ways,
although, like nations which have acted rightly
and not forsaken the lust laws of their gods,
they ask me for righteous laws
and say they delight in approaching God.
3Why do we fast, if thou dost not see it?
Why mortify ourselves, if thou payest no heed?
Since you serve your own interest only on your fast-day
and make all your men work the harder,
4since your fasting leads only to wrangling and strife
and dealing vicious blows with the fist,
on such a day you are keeping no fast
that will carry your cry to heaven.
5Is it a fast like this that I require,
a day of mortification such as this,
that a man should bow his head like a bulrush
and make his bed on sackcloth and ashes?
Is this what you call a fast,
a day acceptable to the LORD?
6Is not this what I require of you as a fast:
to loose the fetters of injustice,
to untie the knots of the yoke,
to snap every yoke
and set free those who have been crushed?
7Is it not sharing your food with the hungry,
taking the homeless poor into your house,
clothing the naked when you meet them
and never evading a duty to your kinsfolk?
8Then shall your light break forth like the dawn
and soon you will grow healthy like a wound newly healed;
your own righteousness shall be your vanguard
and the glory of the LORD your rearguard.
9Then, if you call, the LORD will answer;
if you cry to him, he will say, 'Here I am.'
If you cease to pervert justice,
to point the accusing finger and lay false charges,
10if you feed the hungry from your own plenty
and satisfy the needs of the wretched,
then your light will rise like dawn out of darkness
and your dusk be like noonday;
11the LORD will be your guide continually
and will satisfy your needs in the shimmering heat;
he will give you strength of limb;
you will be like a well-watered garden,
like a spring whose waters never fail.
12The ancient ruins will be restored by your own kindred
and you will build once more on ancestral foundations;
you shall be called Rebuilder of broken walls,
Restorer of houses in ruins. Keeping the Sabbath. Is.58.13-14
13If you cease to tread the sabbath underfoot,
and keep my holy day free from your own affairs,
if you call the sabbath a day of joy
and the LORD's holy day a day to be honoured,
if you honour it by not plying your trade,
not seeking your own interest
or attending to your own affairs,
14then you shall find your joy in the LORD,
and I will set you riding on the heights of the earth,
and your father Jacob's patrimony shall be yours to enjoy;
the LORD himself has spoken it.