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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Yeshayah (Isaiah) 58
58
1“Cry aloud, do not spare. Lift up your voice like the shophar. Declare to My people their transgression, and the house of Ya‛aqoḇ their sins.
2“Yet they seek Me day by day, and delight to know My ways, as a nation that did righteousness, and did not forsake the right-ruling of their Elohim. They ask of Me rulings of righteousness, they delight in drawing near to Elohim.
3They say, ‘Why have we fasted, and You have not seen? Why have we afflicted our beings, and You took no note?’ ”Look, in the day of your fasting you find pleasure, and drive on all your labourers.
4“Look, you fast for strife and contention, and to strike with the fist of wrongness. You do not fast as you do this day, to make your voice heard on high.
5“Is it a fast that I have chosen, a day for a man to afflict his being? Is it to bow down his head like a bulrush, and to spread out sackcloth and ashes? Do you call this a fast, and an acceptable day to יהוה?
6“Is this not the fast that I have chosen: to loosen the tight cords of wrongness, to undo the bands of the yoke, to exempt the oppressed, and to break off every yoke?
7“Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and that you bring to your house the poor who are cast out; when you see the naked, and cover him, and not hide yourself from your own flesh?
8“Then your light would break forth like the morning, your healing spring forth speedily. And your righteousness shall go before you, the esteem of יהוה would be your rear guard.
9“Then, when you call, יהוה would answer; when you cry, He would say, ‘Here I am.’ ”If you take away the yoke from your midst, the pointing of the finger, and the speaking of unrighteousness,
10if you extend your being to the hungry and satisfy the afflicted being, then your light shall dawn in the darkness, and your darkness be as noon.
11“Then יהוה would guide you continually, and satisfy your being in drought, and strengthen your bones. And you shall be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.
12“And those from among you shall build the old waste places. You shall raise up the foundations of many generations. And you would be called the Repairer of the Breach, the Restorer of Streets to Dwell In.
13“If you do turn back your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on My set-apart day, and shall call the Sabbath ‘a delight,’ the set-apart day of יהוה ‘esteemed,’ and shall esteem it, not doing your own ways, nor finding your own pleasure, nor speaking your own words,
14then you shall delight yourself in יהוה. And I shall cause you to ride on the heights of the earth, and feed you with the inheritance of Ya‛aqoḇ your father. For the mouth of יהוה has spoken!”
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