Warnings to keep the moral law
    and say they delight in knowing my ways,
  although, like nations which have acted rightly
    and not forsaken the just laws of their gods,
  they ask me for righteous laws
    and say they delight in approaching God.


   3   Why 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,
4   since 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.
5   Is 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?
6   Is 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?
7   Is 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?
8   Then 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.
9   Then, 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,
   10   if 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;
   11   the Lord will be your guide continually
  and will satisfy your needs in the shimmering heat;

Warnings to keep the moral law
    he will give you strength of limb;
  you will be like a well-watered garden,
like a spring whose waters never fail.
12   The 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.


   13   If you cease to tread the sabbath underfoot,
  and keep my holy day free from your own affairs, ^note
  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,
   14   then 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.

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