Fasting

“Go and assemble all the Jews who can be found in Susa, and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day, and I and my maidens will fast as you do. After that, I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish!”

¹⁶ When you fast, do not be somber like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces to show men they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they already have their full reward.

¹⁷ But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face,

¹⁸ so that your fasting will not be obvious to men, but only to your Father, who is unseen. And your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

²¹ And there by the Ahava Canal I proclaimed a fast, so that we might humble ourselves before our God and ask Him for a safe journey for us and our children, with all our possessions.

²² For I was ashamed to ask the king for an escort of soldiers and horsemen to protect us from our enemies on the road, since we had told him, “The hand of our God is gracious to all who seek Him, but His great anger is against all who forsake Him.”

²³ So we fasted and petitioned our God about this, and He granted our request.

⁴ You fast with contention and strife to strike viciously with your fist. You cannot fast as you do today and have your voice be heard on high.

⁵ Is this the fast I have chosen: a day for a man to deny himself, to bow his head like a reed, and to spread out sackcloth and ashes? Will you call this a fast and a day acceptable to the LORD?

⁶ Isn’t this the fast that I have chosen: to break the chains of wickedness, to untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and tear off every yoke?

³ Jehoshaphat was alarmed and set his face to seek the LORD. And he proclaimed a fast throughout Judah.

⁴ So the people of Judah gathered to seek the LORD, and indeed, they came from all the cities of Judah to seek Him.

David pleaded with God for the boy. He fasted and went into his house and spent the night lying in sackcloth on the ground.

Consecrate a fast; proclaim a solemn assembly! Gather the elders and all the residents of the land to the house of the LORD your God, and cry out to the LORD.

“Yet even now,” declares the LORD, “return to Me with all your heart, with fasting, weeping, and mourning.”

When I heard these words, I sat down and wept. I mourned for days, fasting and praying before the God of heaven.

¹⁰ I wept and fasted, but it brought me reproach.

¹¹ I made sackcloth my clothing, and I was sport to them.

³⁴ Jesus replied, “Can you make the guests of the bridegroom fast while He is with them?

³⁵ But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; then they will fast.”

¹⁹ Jesus replied, “How can the guests of the bridegroom fast while He is with them? As long as He is with them, they cannot fast.

²⁰ But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; then they will fast.

On the twenty-fourth day of the same month, the Israelites gathered together, fasting and wearing sackcloth, with dust on their heads.

Yet when they were ill, I put on sackcloth; I humbled myself with fasting, but my prayers returned unanswered.

My knees are weak from fasting, and my body grows lean and gaunt.

“Ask all the people of the land and the priests, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months for these seventy years, was it really for Me that you fasted?

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

When they had gathered at Mizpah, they drew water and poured it out before the LORD. On that day they fasted, and there they confessed, “We have sinned against the LORD.” And Samuel judged the Israelites at Mizpah.

Jesus replied, “How can the guests of the bridegroom mourn while He is with them? But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; then they will fast.

² While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.”

³ And after they had fasted and prayed, they laid their hands on them and sent them off.

² In those days I, Daniel, was mourning for three full weeks.

³ I ate no rich food, no meat or wine entered my mouth, and I did not anoint myself with oil until the three weeks were completed.

Paul and Barnabas appointed elders for them in each church, praying and fasting as they entrusted them to the Lord, in whom they had believed.

Then the king went to his palace and spent the night fasting. No entertainment was brought before him, and sleep fled from him.

So I turned my attention to the Lord God to seek Him by prayer and petition, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes.

In every province to which the king’s command and edict came, there was great mourning among the Jews. They fasted, wept, and lamented, and many lay in sackcloth and ashes.

⁵ And the Ninevites believed God. They proclaimed a fast and dressed in sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least.

⁶ When word reached the king of Nineveh, he got up from his throne, took off his royal robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.

⁷ Then he issued a proclamation in Nineveh: “By the decree of the king and his nobles: Let no man or beast, herd or flock, taste anything at all. They must not eat or drink.

After fasting forty days and forty nights, He was hungry.

At that time John’s disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Why is it that we and the Pharisees fast so often, but Your disciples do not fast?”

² For day after day they seek Me and delight to know My ways, like a nation that does what is right and does not forsake the justice of their God. They ask Me for righteous judgments; they delight in the nearness of God.”

³ “Why have we fasted, and You have not seen? Why have we humbled ourselves, and You have not noticed?” “Behold, on the day of your fast, you do as you please, and you oppress all your workers.

³⁶ There was also a prophetess named Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher, who was well along in years. She had been married for seven years,

³⁷ and then was a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the temple, but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying.

¹ Then Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness,

² where for forty days He was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and when they had ended, He was hungry.

Then they said to Him, “John’s disciples and those of the Pharisees frequently fast and pray, but Yours keep on eating and drinking.”

Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were often fasting. So people came to Jesus and asked, “Why don’t Your disciples fast like John’s disciples and those of the Pharisees?”

They mourned and wept and fasted until evening for Saul and his son Jonathan, and for the people of the LORD and the house of Israel, because they had fallen by the sword.

For three days he was without sight, and he did not eat or drink anything.

Then Ezra withdrew from before the house of God and walked to the chamber of Jehohanan son of Eliashib. And while he stayed there, he ate no food and drank no water, because he was mourning over the unfaithfulness of the exiles.

⁵ Then Jeremiah commanded Baruch, “I am restricted; I cannot enter the house of the LORD;

⁶ so you are to go to the house of the LORD on a day of fasting, and in the hearing of the people you are to read the words of the LORD from the scroll you have written at my dictation. Read them in the hearing of all the people of Judah who are coming from their cities.

I fast twice a week and pay tithes of all that I acquire.’

Then they took their bones and buried them under the tamarisk tree in Jabesh, and they fasted seven days.