Cry aloud, spare not, lift up your voice like a trumpet, and show my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins. . . .”Why have we fasted,” they say, “and Thou dost not see? Why have we afflicted our soul, and Thou does not take notice?” Behold, on the day of your fast you find pleasure, and exact (from others) all your labor. Behold, you fast for strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness: you shall not fast as you do this day, to make your voice to be heard on high.
Is it such a fast that I have chosen? A day for a man to afflict his soul? Is it to bow down his head as a reed, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? will you call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the LORD?
Is this not the fast that I have chosen: to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that you break every yoke? Is it not to give your bread to the hungry, and that you bring the poor that are cast out into your house? When you see the naked, that you cover him; and that you do not hide from your own flesh?
Then shall your light break forth as the morning, and your health shall spring forth speedily: and your righteousness shall go before you; the glory of the LORD shall be your reward. Then shall you call, and the LORD shall answer; you shall cry, and he shall say, Here I am. If you take away from the midst of you the yoke, the putting forth of the finger, and speaking vanity;
And if thou draw out your soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall your light rise in obscurity, and your darkness be as the noon day: And the LORD shall guide you continually, and satisfy your soul in drought, and make fat your bones: and you shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail. And those that come from you shall build the old waste places: you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; and you shall be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in.
— From Isaiah the Prophet 58