UTSKRIFT 🔗
00:00:02
Speaker 1: Life Audio. For more resources to help you in your walk with Christ, please visit us at BibleStudyHeadquarters.com. You're listening to the Chapter a Day Audio Bible. I'm John Stonge and today we're in Isaiah chapter 58 and we'll be reading from the English Standard Version. Cry aloud, do not hold back, Lift up your voice like a trumpet. Declare to my people their transgression, to the house of Jacob their sins. Yet they seek me daily and delight to know my ways, as if they were a nation that did righteousness and did not forsake the judgment of their God. They ask of me righteous judgments. They delight to draw near to God. Why have we fasted and you see it not? Why have we humbled ourselves and you take no knowledge of it? Behold, in the day of your fast, you seek your own pleasure and oppress all your workers. Behold, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to hit with a wicked fist. Fasting like yours this day will not make your voice to be heard on high. Is such the fast that I choose a day for a person to humble himself? Is it to bow down his head like a reed and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? Will you call this a fast and a day acceptable to the Lord? Is not this the fast that I choose? To loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke. Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house? when you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh. Then shall your light break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up speedily. Your righteousness shall go before you. The glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer. You shall cry, and he will say, Here I am. If you take away the yoke from your midst, the pointing of the finger and speaking wickedness, if you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday. And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desires in scorched places and make your bones strong, and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water whose waters do not fail. And your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt. You shall raise up the foundations of many generations. You shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to dwell in. If you turn back your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight and the holy day of the Lord honorable, if you honor it not going your own ways or seeking your own pleasure or talking idly, then you shall take delight in the Lord, and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth. I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for this portion of scripture, and we thank you for The fact that you take the time to challenge your people, your family, to honor you sincerely, to show compassion on those who need compassion, and to be giving with the things that you have blessed us with. Lord, we know that as we do so, we display the love of Christ to those that you've placed in our lives. So we pray that that would be something that we would delight to do. And we're grateful, Lord, for portions of Scripture like this that stir us up and challenge us to live what we claim to believe, and to practice the kind of blessing that we know we've received from you. Lord, we're grateful again for this portion of Scripture, for having access to it, and for the privilege that is ours to grow through faith in your Son, Jesus Christ. We commit this day to your care, and we pray this all in Jesus' name. Amen.