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Isaiah 58

God's Chosen Fast

¹Call it out! Don't obscure it!
Raise your voice like a Shofar!
Tell my people their transgression,
The house of Jacob their sin.
²I'm the one they seek on a daily basis,
Knowledge of my ways delights them.
Like a nation that behaved righteously,
and had not abandoned the justice of their God.

They ask me for righteous judgments,
And delight in approaching God.
³Why have we fasted, and you didn't see it?
We afflicted our souls, but you never notice!
Look! At the same time as you fast you're finding pleasure,
And you keep driving your laborers.
⁴Look! You fast for contention and strife,
And to strike with evil blows,
It's not fasting like you're doing now
that will make your voice heard on high?
⁵Is this the kind of fast that I would choose?
Is it a day for a one to afflict oneself?
Is it to bow your head like a reed,
And to make your bed of sackcloth and ashes?
Is this what you would call a fast,
A day that is acceptable to YHWH?
⁶Is not this the fast that I choose,
To break wicked bonds,
To loose the ropes of oppression,
and set free the oppressed,
And to break every yoke.
⁷Is it not to share your food with the hungry,
And to bring the homeless into your house?
Is it not that you see the naked and cover him,
And never turn away from your own family?
⁸Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
And your healing will show itself quickly.
Your righteousness will go before you,
And the glory of the Lord will follow behind.
⁹Then you will call and YHWH will answer,
You will cry out and he will say, here am I.
If you remove the oppressive yoke from among you,
Pointing fingers, and false accusations,
¹⁰If you provide your own living for the hungry,
and satisfy the needy person,
Then your light will shine out in darkness,
and your time of gloom will be like the dawn.
¹¹Then YHWH will guide you continually,
And will satisfy you in a barren land.
He will make your bones strong.
You will be like a flourishing garden,
and like a spring of water whose waters do not fail.
¹²Those among you will build places long in ruins,
On foundations that are generations old.
You will be called hole fixer,
Restorer of places to live. ¹³If 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 Jehovah honorable; and shall honor it, not doing yours own ways, nor finding yours own pleasure, nor speaking [yours own] words: ¹⁴then shalt you delight thyself in Jehovah; and I will make thee to ride upon the high places of the earth; and I will feed thee with the heritage of Jacob your father: for the mouth of YHWH hath spoken it.

Average revision: 2.5714285714285716 (Draft # 0.57142857142857 by individual translator)