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Your fasting makes you violent, and you quarrel and fight. Do you think this kind of fasting will make me listen to your prayers? When you fast, you make yourselves suffer; you bow your heads low like a blade of grass and spread out sackcloth and ashes to lie on. Is that what you call fasting? Do you think I will be pleased with that?

“The kind of fasting I want is this: Remove the chains of oppression and the yoke of injustice, and let the oppressed go free.

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Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife,(A)
    and in striking each other with wicked fists.
You cannot fast as you do today
    and expect your voice to be heard(B) on high.
Is this the kind of fast(C) I have chosen,
    only a day for people to humble(D) themselves?
Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed(E)
    and for lying in sackcloth and ashes?(F)
Is that what you call a fast,
    a day acceptable to the Lord?

“Is not this the kind of fasting(G) I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice(H)
    and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed(I) free
    and break every yoke?(J)

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