Isaiah 58

Isaiah 58:2

Yet they seek me daily, and delight to know my ways, as a nation that did righteousness, &c.

Yet, they do, in an outward formality, make a goodly profession; as if they were zealous in seeking me, and delighted in knowing my laws; &c.

Isaiah 58:3

Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and thou seest not? wherefore have we afflicted our souls, and thou takest no knowledge? Behold, in the day of your fast you find pleasure, and exact all your labours.

Will you know the reason, why your fasts are not accepted of me? Behold, while you make a shew of austerity therein, ye give yourselves to carnal pleasures; and exact, on that day, which should be solemnly holy, the hardest labours and most servile works.

Isaiah 58:4

Behold ye fast for strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness: ye shall not fast as ye do this day, to make your voice to be heard on high.

Behold, though ye do formally fast, yet you do still give yourselves to strife and contention, to cruel extortion and oppression; and colour these wickednesses, with a shew of mortification and holiness: such a fast as this is, is not that, which shall win any favour or acceptation to you, or to your devotions.

Isaiah 58:9

If thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke, the putting forth of the finger, and speaking vanity;

If thou shalt take off thy hand from oppressing thy poor brethren, and abstain from all injurious actions which may be to their prejudice, and shalt refrain thy tongue from speaking vainly or lewdly;

Isaiah 58:10

And if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul: then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noon day.

If, in a feeling compassion of the miseries of the needy, thou shalt enlarge thy bounty and relief to him, and shalt yield comfort to the afflicted soul, God shall turn thy sorrow and calamity into joy and happiness.

Isaiah 58:12

And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; &c.

And those, that shall be of thee, shall build again the old neglected walls of the city and temple of Jerusalem; and raise up those foundations, which shall continue for many ages after, &c.

Isaiah 58:13

If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable; and shalt honour him, &c.

If thou shalt refrain thy foot from walking, far or servilely, on the sabbath; and refrain thyself from doing thy own works, or taking thy own carnal pleasures, on my holy day; and shalt, contrarily, take delight in a conscionable sanctifying of that day of the Lord, as that, which is by thee accounted a day of consecration to thy God, and worthy of great reverence and honour, &c.:

Isaiah 58:14

Then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the month of the Lord hath spoken it.

Then shalt thou find unspeakable comfort in the Lord; then I will cause thee to possess and rule over that highly situated and fruitful land of Judea, and will maintain thee with that inheritance, which thou hast now from thy forefathers.