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?
