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🎧 Dialogue with Trypho
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Chapter 15: What True Fasting Consists Of

THEREFORE: learn to keep the true fast of God, as Isaiah says, so that you may please Him. Isaiah has proclaimed: ‘Shout loudly, and do not hold back: lift up your voice like a trumpet, and show my people their transgressions, and the house of Jacob their sins. They seek Me daily, and desire to know My ways, as a nation that practiced righteousness and did not forsake the judgment of God. They ask Me for righteous judgment and wish to draw near to God, saying, Why have we fasted, and You do not see? We have afflicted our souls, and You do not acknowledge? Because during your fasting days, you pursue your own desires and oppress all those who are subject to you.

Look, you fast for strife and debate, and strike the humble with your fists. Why do you fast as you do today, so that your voice is heard loudly? This is not the fast I have chosen, the day for a person to afflict their soul. Even if you bend your neck like a ring or dress in sackcloth and ashes, will you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord? This is not the fast I have chosen, says the Lord; instead, release every unrighteous bond, dissolve wrong covenants, free the oppressed, and avoid every unjust contract.

Share your bread with the hungry, bring the homeless poor into your home; when you see the naked, clothe them, and do not hide from your own family. Then your light will break forth like the morning, and your healing will quickly appear: your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of God will surround you. Then you will cry out, and the Lord will answer you; while you are speaking, He will say, Here I am. If you remove from yourself the yoke, pointing of the finger, and malicious talk; and give generously your bread to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then your light will rise in darkness, and your night will shine like the noonday; and your God will guide you continually, and you will be satisfied as your soul desires, and your bones will be strong, like a well-watered garden and a spring of water, whose waters never fail.' ‘Therefore, circumcise the foreskin of your heart,’ as the words of God in all these passages demand.

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