[1] Cry 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. [2]
Yet 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. [3] Why 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. [4] Behold, 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. [5] Is 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? [6] Isn`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? [7] Isn`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? [8] Then
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. [9] Then 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; [10] and 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; [11] and 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. [12]
Those 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. [13] If you turn
away your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day;
and call the Sabbath a delight, [and] the holy of Yahweh honorable; and
shall honor it, not doing your own ways, nor finding your own pleasure, nor
speaking [your own] words: [14] then shall you delight yourself in Yahweh;
and I will make you to ride on the high places of the earth; and I will
feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father: for the mouth of Yahweh
has spoken it.
