34 Bible Verses about Abstinence as a discipline

Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the children of Israel, saying, ‘You shall not eat any fat from an ox, a sheep, or a goat. The fat of an animal which dies [of natural causes] and the fat of one which is torn [to pieces by a predator] may be put to any other use, but under no circumstances are you to eat it. read more.
For whoever eats the fat of the animal from which an offering by fire is presented to the Lord, that person who eats shall be cut off from his people [excluding him from the atonement made for them]. Moreover, you are not to eat any blood [of any kind], whether of bird or animal, in any of your dwelling places. Whoever eats any blood, that person shall be cut off from his people.’”

“You are the sons of the Lord your God; you shall not cut yourselves nor shave your forehead for the sake of the dead, for you are a holy people [set apart] to the Lord your God; and the Lord has chosen you out of all the peoples who are on the earth to be a people for His own possession. “You shall not eat anything that is detestable [to the Lord and forbidden by Him]. read more.
These are the animals that you may eat: the ox, the sheep, the goat, the deer, the gazelle, the roebuck, the wild goat, the ibex, the antelope and the mountain sheep. Among the animals, you may eat any animal that has the divided hoof [that is, a hoof] split into two parts [especially at its distal extremity] and that chews the cud. However, you are not to eat any of these [animals] among those which chew the cud, or among those that divide the hoof in two: the camel, the hare and the shaphan, for though they chew the cud, they do not split the hoof; they are unclean for you. The swine, because it has a divided hoof but does not chew the cud; it is unclean for you. You shall not eat their meat nor touch their carcasses. “Of all [creatures] that are in the waters, you may eat these: anything that has fins and scales you may eat, but you may not eat anything that does not have fins and scales; it is unclean for you. “You may eat any clean bird. But these are the ones which you shall not eat: the eagle, the vulture, and the black buzzard, and the red kite, the falcon, and the birds of prey of any variety, and every raven of any variety, and the ostrich, the owl, the seagull, the hawk of any variety, the little owl, the great owl, the long-eared owl, the pelican, the carrion vulture, the cormorant, the stork, and the heron of any variety, and the hoopoe, and the bat. And all flying insects are unclean for you; they shall not be eaten. You may eat any clean bird. “You shall not eat anything that dies on its own. You may give it to the stranger (resident alien, foreigner) who is in your [city] gates, so that he may eat it, or you may sell it to a foreigner [since they are not under God’s law], but you are a people holy (set apart) to the Lord your God. You shall not boil a young goat or a lamb in its mother’s milk.

The next day, as they were on their way and were approaching the city, Peter went up on the roof of the house about the sixth hour (noon) to pray, but he became hungry and wanted something to eat. While the meal was being prepared he fell into a trance; and he saw the sky opened up, and an object like a great sheet descending, lowered by its four corners to the earth, read more.
and it contained all kinds of four-footed animals and crawling creatures of the earth and birds of the air. A voice came to him, “Get up, Peter, kill and eat!” But Peter said, “Not at all, Lord, for I have never eaten anything that is common (unholy) and [ceremonially] unclean.”

So Moses went down from the mountain to the people and sanctified them [for God’s sacred purpose], and they washed their clothes. He said to the people, “Be prepared for the third day; do not be intimate with a woman.”

“This shall be a permanent statute for you: in the seventh month (nearly October) on the tenth day of the month you shall humble yourselves [by fasting] and not do any work, whether the native-born or the stranger who lives temporarily among you; for it is on this day that atonement shall be made for you, to cleanse you; you will be clean from all your sins before the Lord. It is a Sabbath of solemn rest for you, and you shall humble yourselves; it is a permanent statute.

Again the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Say to the sons of Israel, ‘When a man or a woman makes a special vow, the vow of a Nazirite, that is, one separated and dedicated to the Lord, he shall abstain from wine and strong drink; he shall drink no vinegar, whether made from wine or strong drink, nor shall he drink any grape juice nor eat fresh or dried grapes. read more.
All the time of his separation he shall not eat anything produced from the grapevine, from the seeds even to the skins.

So the Israelites shall observe the Sabbath, to celebrate the Sabbath throughout their generations as a perpetual covenant.’ It is a sign between Me and the Israelites forever; for in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day He ceased and was refreshed.”

‘Then on the tenth day of this seventh month you shall have a holy [summoned] assembly [for the Day of Atonement]; and you shall humble yourselves; you shall not do any work.

Therefore, be careful not to drink wine or [any other] intoxicating drink, and do not eat anything [ceremonially] unclean.

Then Ezra got up from before the house of God and went into the chamber of Jehohanan the son of Eliashib [and spent the night there]. He did not eat bread nor drink water, for he was mourning over the [former] exiles’ faithlessness.

They said to me, “The remnant there in the province who survived the captivity are in great distress and reproach; the wall of Jerusalem is broken down and its [fortified] gates have been burned (destroyed) by fire.” Now it came about when I heard these words, I sat down and wept and mourned for days; and I was fasting and praying [constantly] before the God of heaven.

“Even now,” says the Lord,
“Turn and come to Me with all your heart [in genuine repentance],
With fasting and weeping and mourning [until every barrier is removed and the broken fellowship is restored];

The people of Nineveh believed and trusted in God; and they proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth [in penitent mourning], from the greatest even to the least of them.

Now in the church at Antioch there were prophets [who spoke a new message of God to the people] and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen who had been brought up with Herod [Antipas] the tetrarch, and Saul. While they were serving the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for Me Barnabas and Saul (Paul) for the work to which I have called them.”

Then Jesus was led by the [Holy] Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. After He had gone without food for forty days and forty nights, He became hungry.

Now Jesus, full of [and in perfect communication with] the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness for forty days, being tempted by the devil. And He ate nothing during those days, and when they ended, He was hungry.

Then the disciples of John [the Baptist] came to Jesus, asking, “Why do we and the Pharisees often fast [as a religious exercise], but Your disciples do not fast?” And Jesus replied to them, “Can the guests of the bridegroom mourn while the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.

Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting [as a ritual]; and they came and asked Jesus, “Why are John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fasting, but Your disciples are not doing so?” Jesus answered, “The attendants of the bridegroom cannot fast while the bridegroom is [still] with them, can they? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. But the days will come when the bridegroom is [forcefully] taken away from them, and they will fast at that time.

Then they said to Him, “The disciples of John [the Baptist] often practice fasting and offer prayers [of special petition], and so do the disciples of the Pharisees; but Yours eat and drink.” Jesus said to them, “Can you make the wedding guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? But days [for mourning] will come when the bridegroom is [forcefully] taken away from them. They will fast in those days.”

There was a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was very old, and had lived with her husband for seven years after her marriage, and then as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She did not leave the [area of the] temple, but was serving and worshiping night and day with fastings and prayers.

And he was unable to see for three days, and he neither ate nor drank.

He who observes the day, observes it for the Lord. He who eats, eats for the Lord, since he gives thanks to God; while he who abstains, abstains for the Lord and gives thanks to God.

He said to the people, “Be prepared for the third day; do not be intimate with a woman.”

Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wishes to follow Me [as My disciple], he must deny himself [set aside selfish interests], and take up his cross [expressing a willingness to endure whatever may come] and follow Me [believing in Me, conforming to My example in living and, if need be, suffering or perhaps dying because of faith in Me].

Jesus called the crowd together with His disciples, and said to them, “If anyone wishes to follow Me [as My disciple], he must deny himself [set aside selfish interests], and take up his cross [expressing a willingness to endure whatever may come] and follow Me [believing in Me, conforming to My example in living and, if need be, suffering or perhaps dying because of faith in Me].

And He was saying to them all, “If anyone wishes to follow Me [as My disciple], he must deny himself [set aside selfish interests], and take up his cross daily [expressing a willingness to endure whatever may come] and follow Me [believing in Me, conforming to My example in living and, if need be, suffering or perhaps dying because of faith in Me].

Let us conduct ourselves properly and honorably as in the [light of] day, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and irresponsibility, not in quarreling and jealousy.

Therefore it is my judgment that we do not trouble and make it difficult for those who are turning to God among the Gentiles [by putting obstacles in their way], but that we write to them that they are to abstain from anything that has been contaminated by [being offered to] idols and from sexual impurity and from [eating the meat of] what has been strangled and from [the consumption of] blood.

It is good [to do the right thing and] not eat meat or drink wine, or do anything that offends your brother and weakens him spiritually.

“And whenever you are fasting, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they put on a sad and dismal face [like actors, discoloring their faces with ashes or dirt] so that their fasting may be seen by men. I assure you and most solemnly say to you, they [already] have their reward in full.

‘Why have we fasted,’ they say, ‘and You do not see it?
Why have we humbled ourselves and You do not notice?’
Hear this [O Israel], on the day of your fast [when you should be grieving for your sins] you find something you desire [to do],
And you force your hired servants to work [instead of stopping all work, as the law teaches].

“The facts are that you fast only for strife and brawling and to strike with the fist of wickedness.
You do not fast as you do today to make your voice heard on high.

“Is a fast such as this what I have chosen, a day for a man to humble himself [with sorrow in his soul]?
Is it only to bow down his head like a reed
And to make sackcloth and ashes as a bed [pretending to have a repentant heart]?
Do you call this a fast and a day pleasing to the Lord?
read more.

“[Rather] is this not the fast which I choose,
To undo the bonds of wickedness,
To tear to pieces the ropes of the yoke,
To let the oppressed go free
And break apart every [enslaving] yoke?

“Is it not to divide your bread with the hungry
And bring the homeless poor into the house;
When you see the naked, that you cover him,
And not to hide yourself from [the needs of] your own flesh and blood?

Thus says the Lord to this people [Judah], “In the manner and to the degree [already pointed out] they have loved to wander; they have not restrained their feet. Therefore the Lord does not accept them; He will now remember [in detail] their wickedness and punish them for their sins.” So the Lord said to me, “Do not pray for good things for this people. Though they fast, I will not hear their cry; and though they offer burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them [because they are done as obligations, and not as acts of loving obedience]. Instead I will consume them by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence.”

Now the people of Bethel had sent Sharezer and Regem-melech and their men to seek the favor of the Lord, speaking to the priests who belong to the house of the Lord of hosts and to the prophets, saying, “[Now that I am returned from exile] shall I weep in the fifth month [mourning the destruction of the temple], and fast as I have done these many years [in Babylon]?” Then the word of the Lord of hosts came to me (Zechariah), saying, read more.
“Speak to all the people of the land and to the priests, saying, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months these seventy years [that you were in exile], was it actually for Me that you fasted? When you eat and when you drink, do you not eat for yourselves and do you not drink for yourselves [to satisfy your own needs]?

The Pharisee stood [ostentatiously] and began praying to himself [in a self-righteous way, saying]: ‘God, I thank You that I am not like the rest of men—swindlers, unjust (dishonest), adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.’