1 Shout! A full-throated shout! Hold nothing back - a trumpet-blast shout! Tell my people whats wrong with their lives, face my family Jacob with their sins! 2 Theyre busy, busy, busy at worship, and love studying all about me. To all appearances theyre a nation of right-living people - law-abiding, God-honoring. They ask me, Whats the right thing to do? and love having me on their side. 3 But they also complain, Why do we fast and you dont look our way? Why do we humble ourselves and you dont even notice? Well, heres why: The bottom line on your fast days is profit. You drive your employees much too hard. 4 You fast, but at the same time you bicker and fight. You fast, but you swing a mean fist. The kind of fasting you do wont get your prayers off the ground. 5 Do you think this is the kind of fast day Im after: a day to show off humility? To put on a pious long face and parade around solemnly in black? Do you call that fasting, a fast day that I, God, would like? 6 This is the kind of fast day Im after: to break the chains of injustice, get rid of exploitation in the workplace, free the oppressed, cancel debts. 7 What Im interested in seeing you do is: sharing your food with the hungry, inviting the homeless poor into your homes, putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad, being available to your own families. 8 Do this and the lights will turn on, and your lives will turn around at once. Your righteousness will pave your way. The God of glory will secure your passage. 9 Then when you pray, God will answer. Youll call out for help and Ill say, Here I am. A Full Life in the Emptiest of Places If you get rid of unfair practices, quit blaming victims, quit gossiping about other peoples sins, 10 If you are generous with the hungry and start giving yourselves to the down-and-out, Your lives will begin to glow in the darkness, your shadowed lives will be bathed in sunlight. 11 I will always show you where to go. Ill give you a full life in the emptiest of places - firm muscles, strong bones. Youll be like a well-watered garden, a gurgling spring that never runs dry. 12 Youll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew, rebuild the foundations from out of your past. Youll be known as those who can fix anything, restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate, make the community livable again. 13 If you watch your step on the Sabbath and dont use my holy day for personal advantage, If you treat the Sabbath as a day of joy, Gods holy day as a celebration, If you honor it by refusing business as usual, making money, running here and there - 14 Then youll be free to enjoy God! Oh, Ill make you ride high and soar above it all. Ill make you feast on the inheritance of your ancestor Jacob. Yes! God says so! -Isaiah 58
Posted on: Tue, 23 Sep 2014 03:33:06 +0000