Loading...
Loading...
Isaiah 58:1-12
1Cry aloud, don`t spare, lift up your voice like a trumpet, and declare to my people their disobedience, and to the house of Jacob their sins.
2Yet they seek me daily, and delight to know my ways: as a nation that did righteousness, and didn`t forsake the ordinance of their God, they ask of me righteous judgments; they delight to draw near to God.
3Why have we fasted, [say they], and you don`t see? [why] have we afflicted our soul, and you take no knowledge? Behold, in the day of your fast you find [your own] pleasure, and exact all your labors.
4Behold, you fast for strife and contention, and to strike with the fist of wickedness: you don`t fast this day so as to make your voice to be heard on high.
5Is such the fast that I have chosen? the day for a man to afflict his soul? Is it to bow down his head as a rush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? will you call this a fast, and an acceptable day to Yahweh?
6Isn`t this the fast that I have chosen: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the bands of the yoke, and to let the oppressed go free, and that you break every yoke?
7Isn`t it to deal your bread to the hungry, and that you bring the poor who are cast out to your house? when you see the naked, that you cover him; and that you not hide yourself from your own flesh?
8Then shall your light break forth as the morning, and your healing shall spring forth speedily; and your righteousness shall go before you; the glory of Yahweh shall by your rearward.
9Then shall you call, and Yahweh will answer; you shall cry, and he will say, Here I am. If you take away from the midst of you the yoke, the putting forth of the finger, and speaking wickedly;
10and if you draw out your soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul: then shall your light rise in darkness, and your obscurity be as the noonday;
11and Yahweh will guide you continually, and satisfy your soul in dry places, and make strong your bones; and you shall be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters don`t fail.
12Those who shall be of you shall build the old waste places; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; and you shall be called The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in.
130 results found
In 1933, Dorothy Day stood in a New York City breadline — not to observe, but to serve. A former journalist and recent Catholic convert,...
In 369 AD, a devastating famine swept through Cappadocia. Bishop Basil of Caesarea watched the wealthy of his city continue their feasting while peasants collapsed...
For eleven years, Grace Community Church in Tulsa held a weekly prayer breakfast every Wednesday at 6 a.m. They sang beautifully. They fasted during Lent...
For twenty years, the congregation of First Baptist in Baton Rouge prided themselves on their Wednesday night prayer meetings. They fasted twice a month, sang...
In 1933, Dorothy Day stood in a cramped storefront at 436 East Mott Street in Manhattan, ladling soup into chipped bowls. She was a journalist,...
In January 2019, during the polar vortex that dropped temperatures to thirty below in Detroit, a group of women from New Bethel Church realized something...
Every Sunday morning, the congregation at Grace Fellowship in Sacramento sang about God's provision. They tithed faithfully, attended Wednesday night Bible study, and fasted during...
In December 1909, a twenty-one-year-old Japanese seminary student named Toyohiko Kagawa walked into the Shinkawa slums of Kobe — a six-block stretch of open sewers,...
In 1846, as the Irish Potato Famine tightened its grip, Parliament debated policy and churches held solemn days of prayer and fasting. Meanwhile, a tiny...
Every Sunday morning, First Avenue Community Church spent four hundred dollars on fresh flowers for the sanctuary. The arrangements were stunning — birds of paradise,...