Isaiah 58
58
Chapter 58
Worship God truly
1The Lord says,
‘Shout out! Shout as loudly as you can!
Make as much noise as a trumpet makes!
Tell my people that they have not obeyed me.
Tell the family of Jacob about their sins. #58:1 ‘The family of Jacob’ means God's people, Judah and Israel, who were descendants of Jacob.
2Every day my people come to worship me.
It seems that they want to know my ways.
They seem like a nation of people
who are doing the right things.
They seem to be obeying the law of their God.
They ask me to decide things fairly.
Yes, they seem to want to be near to me.
3They say to me, “We have fasted to please you,
but you do not see it.
We make ourselves humble
and you do not even look.”
Listen to me! Yes you fast,
but you do it to please yourselves.
At the same time as you are fasting,
you are being cruel to the people who work for you.
4Yes! While you are fasting,
you are also quarrelling and you are fighting.
You hit each other with your fists.
If you want your prayers to reach me in heaven,
you cannot continue to fast in the way that you do today.
5The way that you fast does not please me at all:
You make yourselves humble for a day.
You bend down your head,
like a piece of weak grass.
You lie down on sackcloth and ashes.
Do you think that you are really fasting when you do that?
Do you think that it pleases me, the Lord?
6This is the way that I want you to fast:
You must remove the chains
from prisoners who should not be in prison.
You must stop being cruel
to the people who work for you.
You must let people who are in pain go free.
You must break the yoke
of work that is too hard for weak people. #58:6 A yoke is a picture of very hard work that you cannot escape from.
7Instead, share your food with hungry people.
Give a place in your home
to poor people who have no home.
Give clothes to people who have nothing to wear.
If people in your own family need help,
do not refuse to help them.
8Then God's light will shine on you,
like the sun's light at dawn.
Very soon, your troubles will go away.
The good things that you do to help others
will be clear for everyone to see.
And the Lord will use his great power
to keep you safe.
9Then you will ask the Lord for help
and he will answer you.
When you call out to him,
he will say, “Here I am.”
But you must stop being cruel to other people.
Do not accuse people,
and do not say bad things about them.
10If people are hungry,
share your own food with them.
Help those people who are in pain.
Then your help to them will be like a light
that shines in a dark place.
You will no longer live in darkness,
but you will have light as bright as the sun at noon.
11The Lord will always be your guide.
He will give you plenty to eat,
even when the ground is dry.
He will make your bodies strong.
You will be like a garden that has plenty of water.
You will be like a spring of water
that never becomes dry.
12You will build again the cities
which became heaps of stones a long time ago.
You will build your houses on the old foundations.
People will call you, “Builders who mend the walls and the streets with their houses.”
13So remember to obey the rules for the Sabbath day.
That is my holy day,
so do not just try to please yourselves.
Enjoy the Sabbath day,
and respect it as the Lord's holy day.
Do not do your usual work on that day.
Do not do things or speak about things,
only to make yourself happy.
14If you do those things, you will be happy
as you serve me, the Lord.
I will give you all the things that you need.
I will cause crops to grow
on the land that I gave to your ancestor Jacob.’
That is the Lord's message.
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Isaiah 58: EASY
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MissionAssist 2018
Isaiah 58
58
LVIII
1Cry aloud, spare not;
Lift up thy voice like a trumpet;
And declare unto my people their transgression,
And to the house of Jacob their sin.
2Yet they seek me daily,
And delight to know my ways;
As a nation that did righteousness,
And had not forsaken the ordinance of their God:
They ask of me righteous ordinances,
They take delight in approaching to God.
3Wherefore we have fasted, say they, and thou seest not?
Have afflicted our souls, and thou dost not regard?
Behold I in the day of your fasting ye find pleasure,
And exact all your tasks of labour.
4Behold! ye fast for strife and contention,
And to smite with the fist of wickedness;
Ye fast not as this day,
So as to cause your voice to be heard on high.
5Is it such a fast that I have chosen?
A day for a man to afflict his soul?
Is it that he should bow down his head like a bulrush,
And spread sackcloth and ashes under him?
Wilt thou call this a fast,
And a day acceptable to Jehovah?
6Is not this the fast that I have chosen?
To loose the fetters of wickedness,
To untie the bands of the yoke;
And to let the oppressed go free,
And that ye should break asunder every yoke?
7Is it not to distribute thy bread to the hungry,
And to bring the poor that are persecuted into thy house?
When thou seest the naked, that thou clothe him,
And that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?
8Then shall thy light break forth as the dawn,
And thine health shall spring forth speedily;
And thy righteousness shall go before thee,
And the glory of Jehovah shall bring up thy rear.
9Then shalt thou call, and Jehovah shall answer;
Thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Behold me!
If thou remove from the midst of thee the yoke,
The pointing of the finger, and speaking vanity;
10And 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.
11And Jehovah shall guide thee continually,
And satisfy thy soul in drought;
And strengthen thy bones:
And thou shalt be like a watered garden,
And like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.
12And they that spring from thee shall build the old waste places,
The foundations of many generations shalt thou raise up;
And thou shalt be called, The Repairer of the breach;
The Restorer of paths to dwell in.
13If 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 Jehovah, honourable;
And shalt honour it, not doing thine own ways,
Nor seeking thine own pleasure, nor using idle talk;
14Then shalt thou delight thyself in Jehovah;
And I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth,
And feed thee with the inheritance of Jacob thy father:
For the mouth of Jehovah hath spoken it.
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Translated by Rev John Jones (Ioan Tegid).Published at Oxford in 1830, second edition 1842.