10 Bible Verses about How To Fast

Giving the force of law to these days of Purim at their fixed times, as they had been ordered by Mordecai the Jew and Esther the queen, and in keeping with the rules they had made for themselves and their seed, in connection with their time of going without food and their cry for help.

Have I given orders for such a day as this? a day for keeping yourselves from pleasure? is it only a question of the bent head, of putting on haircloth, and being seated in the dust? is this what seems to you a holy day, well-pleasing to the Lord?

Is not this the holy day for which I have given orders: to let loose those who have wrongly been made prisoners, to undo the bands of the yoke, and to let the crushed go free, and every yoke be broken?

But as for me, when they were ill I put on the clothing of sorrow: I went without food and was sad, and my prayer came back again to my heart.

And when you go without food, be not sad-faced as the false-hearted are. For they go about with changed looks, so that men may see that they are going without food. Truly I say to you, They have their reward.

But when you go without food, put oil on your head and make your face clean;

So that no one may see that you are going without food, but your Father in secret; and your Father, who sees in secret, will give you your reward.

They say, Why have we kept ourselves from food, and you do not see it? why have we kept ourselves from pleasure, and you take no note of it? If, in the days when you keep from food, you take the chance to do your business, and get in your debts;

Say to all the people of the land and to the priests, When you went without food and gave yourselves to grief in the fifth and the seventh months for these seventy years, did you ever do it because of me?

If keeping from food makes you quickly angry, ready for fighting and giving blows with evil hands; your holy days are not such as to make your voice come to my ears on high.