16 Bible Verses about Asceticism, Types

So all the Israelites, the whole army, went up to Bethel. They wept and sat there before the Lord; they did not eat anything that day until evening. They offered up burnt sacrifices and tokens of peace to the Lord.

David then grabbed his own clothes and tore them, as did all the men who were with him. They lamented and wept and fasted until evening because Saul, his son Jonathan, the Lord's people, and the house of Israel had fallen by the sword.

Then Jeremiah told Baruch, "I am no longer allowed to go into the Lord's temple. So you go there the next time all the people of Judah come in from their towns to fast in the Lord's temple. Read out loud where all of them can hear you what I told you the Lord said, which you wrote in the scroll.

She had lived as a widow since then for eighty-four years. She never left the temple, worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day.

So I turned my attention to the Lord God to implore him by prayer and requests, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes.

When Ahab heard these words, he tore his clothes, put on sackcloth, and fasted. He slept in sackcloth and walked around dejected.

On the twenty-fourth day of this same month the Israelites assembled; they were fasting and wearing sackcloth, their heads covered with dust.

Now with regard to the issues you wrote about: "It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman."

He said to the people, "Be ready for the third day. Do not go near your wives."

The priest replied to David, "I don't have any ordinary bread at my disposal. Only holy bread is available, and then only if your soldiers have abstained from sexual relations with women."

These are the ones who have not defiled themselves with women, for they are virgins. These are the ones who follow the Lamb wherever he goes. These were redeemed from humanity as firstfruits to God and to the Lamb,

Then the Lord spoke to Moses: "Speak to the Israelites, and tell them, 'When either a man or a woman takes a special vow, to take a vow as a Nazirite, to separate himself to the Lord, he must separate himself from wine and strong drink, he must drink neither vinegar made from wine nor vinegar made from strong drink, nor may he drink any juice of grapes, nor eat fresh grapes or raisins.read more.
All the days of his separation he must not eat anything that is produced by the grapevine, from seed to skin. "'All the days of the vow of his separation no razor may be used on his head until the time is fulfilled for which he separated himself to the Lord. He will be holy, and he must let the locks of hair on his head grow long. "'All the days that he separates himself to the Lord he must not contact a dead body. He must not defile himself even for his father or his mother or his brother or his sister if they die, because the separation for his God is on his head. All the days of his separation he must be holy to the Lord. "'If anyone dies very suddenly beside him and he defiles his consecrated head, then he must shave his head on the day of his purification -- on the seventh day he must shave it. On the eighth day he is to bring two turtledoves or two young pigeons to the priest, to the entrance to the tent of meeting. Then the priest will offer one for a purification offering and the other as a burnt offering, and make atonement for him, because of his transgression in regard to the corpse. So he must reconsecrate his head on that day. He must rededicate to the Lord the days of his separation and bring a male lamb in its first year as a reparation offering, but the former days will not be counted because his separation was defiled. "'Now this is the law of the Nazirite: When the days of his separation are fulfilled, he must be brought to the entrance of the tent of meeting, and he must present his offering to the Lord: one male lamb in its first year without blemish for a burnt offering, one ewe lamb in its first year without blemish for a purification offering, one ram without blemish for a peace offering, and a basket of bread made without yeast, cakes of fine flour mixed with olive oil, wafers made without yeast and smeared with olive oil, and their grain offering and their drink offerings. "'Then the priest must present all these before the Lord and offer his purification offering and his burnt offering. Then he must offer the ram as a peace offering to the Lord, with the basket of bread made without yeast; the priest must also offer his grain offering and his drink offering. "'Then the Nazirite must shave his consecrated head at the entrance to the tent of meeting and must take the hair from his consecrated head and put it on the fire where the peace offering is burning. And the priest must take the boiled shoulder of the ram, one cake made without yeast from the basket, and one wafer made without yeast, and put them on the hands of the Nazirite after he has shaved his consecrated head; then the priest must wave them as a wave offering before the Lord; it is a holy portion for the priest, together with the breast of the wave offering and the thigh of the raised offering. After this the Nazirite may drink wine.' "This is the law of the Nazirite who vows to the Lord his offering according to his separation, as well as whatever else he can provide. Thus he must fulfill his vow that he makes, according to the law of his separation."

The Lord's angelic messenger appeared to the woman and said to her, "You are infertile and childless, but you will conceive and have a son. Now be careful! Do not drink wine or beer, and do not eat any food that will make you ritually unclean. Look, you will conceive and have a son. You must never cut his hair, for the child will be dedicated to God from birth. He will begin to deliver Israel from the power of the Philistines."read more.
The woman went and said to her husband, "A man sent from God came to me! He looked like God's angelic messenger -- he was very awesome. I did not ask him where he came from, and he did not tell me his name. He said to me, 'Look, you will conceive and have a son. So now, do not drink wine or beer and do not eat any food that will make you ritually unclean. For the child will be dedicated to God from birth till the day he dies.'" Manoah prayed to the Lord, "Please, Lord, allow the man sent from God to visit us again, so he can teach us how we should raise the child who will be born." God answered Manoah's prayer. God's angelic messenger visited the woman again while she was sitting in the field. But her husband Manoah was not with her. The woman ran at once and told her husband, "Come quickly, the man who visited me the other day has appeared to me!" So Manoah got up and followed his wife. When he met the man, he said to him, "Are you the man who spoke to my wife?" He said, "Yes." Manoah said, "Now, when your announcement comes true, how should the child be raised and what should he do?" The Lord's messenger told Manoah, "Your wife should pay attention to everything I told her. She should not drink anything that the grapevine produces. She must not drink wine or beer, and she must not eat any food that will make her ritually unclean. She should obey everything I commanded her to do."

She nagged him every day and pressured him until he was sick to death of it.

The Lord spoke to Jeremiah when Jehoiakim son of Josiah was ruling over Judah. "Go to the Rechabite community. Invite them to come into one of the side rooms of the Lord's temple and offer them some wine to drink." So I went and got Jaazaniah son of Jeremiah the grandson of Habazziniah, his brothers, all his sons, and all the rest of the Rechabite community.read more.
I took them to the Lord's temple. I took them into the room where the disciples of the prophet Hanan son of Igdaliah stayed. That room was next to the one where the temple officers stayed and above the room where Maaseiah son of Shallum, one of the doorkeepers of the temple, stayed. Then I set cups and pitchers full of wine in front of the members of the Rechabite community and said to them, "Have some wine." But they answered, "We do not drink wine because our ancestor Jonadab son of Rechab commanded us not to. He told us, 'You and your children must never drink wine. Do not build houses. Do not plant crops. Do not plant a vineyard or own one. Live in tents all your lives. If you do these things you will live a long time in the land that you wander about on.' We and our wives and our sons and daughters have obeyed everything our ancestor Jonadab commanded us. We have never drunk wine. We have not built any houses to live in. We do not own any vineyards, fields, or crops. We have lived in tents. We have obeyed our ancestor Jonadab and done exactly as he commanded us. But when King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon invaded the land we said, 'Let's get up and go to Jerusalem to get away from the Babylonian and Aramean armies.' That is why we are staying here in Jerusalem." Then the Lord spoke to Jeremiah. The Lord God of Israel who rules over all told him, "Go and speak to the people of Judah and the citizens of Jerusalem. Tell them, 'I, the Lord, say: "You must learn a lesson from this about obeying what I say! Jonadab son of Rechab ordered his descendants not to drink wine. His orders have been carried out. To this day his descendants have drunk no wine because they have obeyed what their ancestor commanded them. But I have spoken to you over and over again, but you have not obeyed me! I sent all my servants the prophets to warn you over and over again. They said, "Every one of you, stop doing the evil things you have been doing and do what is right. Do not pay allegiance to other gods and worship them. Then you can continue to live in this land that I gave to you and your ancestors." But you did not pay any attention or listen to me. Yes, the descendants of Jonadab son of Rechab have carried out the orders that their ancestor gave them. But you people have not obeyed me! So I, the Lord, the God who rules over all, the God of Israel, say: "I will soon bring on Judah and all the citizens of Jerusalem all the disaster that I threatened to bring on them. I will do this because I spoke to them but they did not listen. I called out to them but they did not answer."'" Then Jeremiah spoke to the Rechabite community, "The Lord God of Israel who rules over all says, 'You have obeyed the orders of your ancestor Jonadab. You have followed all his instructions. You have done exactly as he commanded you.' So the Lord God of Israel who rules over all says, 'Jonadab son of Rechab will never lack a male descendant to serve me.'"

Instead I subdue my body and make it my slave, so that after preaching to others I myself will not be disqualified.