The three sons of Zeruiah were there: Joab, Abishai, and Asahel. Asahel was a fast runner, like one of the wild gazelles.

But now that he is dead, why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I’ll go to him, but he will never return to me.”

Absalom was riding on his mule when he happened to meet David’s soldiers. When the mule went under the tangled branches of a large oak tree, Absalom’s head was caught fast in the tree. The mule under him kept going, so he was suspended in midair.

In the letters, she wrote:

Proclaim a fast and seat Naboth at the head of the people.

They proclaimed a fast and seated Naboth at the head of the people.

He remained faithful to Yahweh and did not turn from following Him but kept the commands the Lord had commanded Moses.

Jehoshaphat was afraid, and he resolved to seek the Lord. Then he proclaimed a fast for all Judah,

I proclaimed a fast by the Ahava River, so that we might humble ourselves before our God and ask Him for a safe journey for us, our children, and all our possessions.

“Go and assemble all the Jews who can be found in Susa and fast for me. Don’t eat or drink for three days, day or night. I and my female servants will also fast in the same way. After that, I will go to the king even if it is against the law. If I perish, I perish.”

Mordecai wrote in King Ahasuerus’s name and sealed the edicts with the royal signet ring. He sent the documents by mounted couriers, who rode fast horses bred from the royal racing mares.

You say, “No!
We will escape on horses”—
therefore you will escape!—
and, “We will ride on fast horses”—
but those who pursue you will be faster.

“Why have we fasted, but You have not seen?
We have denied ourselves, but You haven’t noticed!”
“Look, you do as you please on the day of your fast,
and oppress all your workers.

You fast with contention and strife
to strike viciously with your fist.
You cannot fast as you do today,
hoping to make your voice heard on high.

Will the fast I choose be like this:
A day for a person to deny himself,
to bow his head like a reed,
and to spread out sackcloth and ashes?
Will you call this a fast
and a day acceptable to the Lord?

Isn’t the fast I choose:
To break the chains of wickedness,
to untie the ropes of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free,
and to tear off every yoke?

If they fast, I will not hear their cry of despair. If they offer burnt offering and grain offering, I will not accept them. Rather, I will finish them off by sword, famine, and plague.”

In the fifth year of Jehoiakim son of Josiah, king of Judah, in the ninth month, all the people of Jerusalem and all those coming in from Judah’s cities into Jerusalem proclaimed a fast before the Lord.

This is what the Lord of Hosts says:

Israelites and Judeans alike have been oppressed.
All their captors hold them fast;
they refuse to release them.

Announce a sacred fast;
proclaim an assembly!
Gather the elders
and all the residents of the land
at the house of the Lord your God,
and cry out to the Lord.

Blow the horn in Zion!
Announce a sacred fast;
proclaim an assembly.

The men of Nineveh believed in God. They proclaimed a fast and dressed in sackcloth—from the greatest of them to the least.

by asking the priests who were at the house of the Lord of Hosts as well as the prophets, “Should we mourn and fast in the fifth month as we have done these many years?”

“Ask all the people of the land and the priests: When you fasted and lamented in the fifth and in the seventh months for these 70 years, did you really fast for Me?

“The Lord of Hosts says this: The fast of the fourth month, the fast of the fifth, the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the tenth will become times of joy, gladness, and cheerful festivals for the house of Judah. Therefore, love truth and peace.”