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    Your kind of fasting is pointless, for it only leads to bitter quarrels,
        contentious backbiting, and vicious fighting.
    You are not fasting today because you want Me to hear your voice.
    What kind of a fast do I choose? Is a true fast simply
        some religious exercise for making a person feel miserable and woeful?
    Is it about how you bow your head (like a bent reed), how you dress (in sackcloth), and where you sit (in a bed of ashes)?
        Is this what you call a fast, a day the Eternal One finds good and proper?
    No, what I want in a fast is this:
        to liberate those tied down and held back by injustice,
        to lighten the load of those heavily burdened,
        to free the oppressed and shatter every type of oppression.

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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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Behold, ye fast for strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness: ye shall not fast as ye do this day, to make your voice to be heard on high.

Is it such a fast that I have chosen? a day for a man to afflict his soul? is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the Lord?

Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?

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