133 verses about fasting

and the plenty will not be known in the land by reason of that famine which follows; for it will be very grievous.

Moses entered into the middle of the cloud, and went up on the mountain; and Moses was on the mountain forty days and forty nights.

He was there with Yahweh forty days and forty nights; he neither ate bread, nor drank water. He wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.

On the fifteenth day of the same month is the feast of unleavened bread to Yahweh. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread.

“However on the tenth day of this seventh month is the day of atonement: it shall be a holy convocation to you, and you shall afflict yourselves; and you shall offer an offering made by fire to Yahweh.

For whoever it is who shall not deny himself in that same day; shall be cut off from his people.

It shall be a Sabbath of solemn rest for you, and you shall deny yourselves. In the ninth day of the month at evening, from evening to evening, you shall keep your Sabbath.”

he shall separate himself from wine and strong drink. He shall drink no vinegar of wine, or vinegar of fermented drink, neither shall he drink any juice of grapes, nor eat fresh grapes or dried.

All the days of his separation he shall eat nothing that is made of the grapevine, from the seeds even to the skins.

“‘On the tenth day of this seventh month you shall have a holy convocation. You shall afflict your souls. You shall do no kind of work;

When I had gone up onto the mountain to receive the stone tablets, even the tablets of the covenant which Yahweh made with you, then I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water.

I fell down before Yahweh, as at the first, forty days and forty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all your sin which you sinned, in doing that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, to provoke him to anger.

Then all the children of Israel, and all the people, went up, and came to Bethel, and wept, and sat there before Yahweh, and fasted that day until evening; then they offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before Yahweh.

They gathered together to Mizpah, and drew water, and poured it out before Yahweh, and fasted on that day, and said there, “We have sinned against Yahweh.” Samuel judged the children of Israel in Mizpah.

The men of Israel were distressed that day; for Saul had adjured the people, saying, “Cursed is the man who eats any food until it is evening, and I am avenged of my enemies.” So none of the people tasted food.

Then one of the people answered, and said, “Your father directly commanded the people with an oath, saying, ‘Cursed is the man who eats food today.’” The people were faint.

Then Saul fell immediately his full length on the earth, and was terrified, because of Samuel’s words. There was no strength in him; for he had eaten no bread all day long or all night long.

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

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

David therefore begged God for the child; and David fasted, and went in, and lay all night on the ground.

The elders of his house arose beside him, to raise him up from the earth: but he would not, and he didn’t eat bread with them.

Then his servants said to him, “What is this that you have done? You fasted and wept for the child while he was alive, but when the child was dead, you rose up and ate bread.”

He said, “While the child was yet alive, I fasted and wept; for I said, ‘Who knows whether Yahweh will not be gracious to me, that the child may live?’

But now he is dead, why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me.”

She wrote in the letters, saying, “Proclaim a fast, and set Naboth on high among the people.

They proclaimed a fast, and set Naboth on high among the people.

When Ahab heard those words, he tore his clothes, and put sackcloth on his flesh, and fasted, and lay in sackcloth, and went softly.

all the valiant men arose, and took away the body of Saul, and the bodies of his sons, and brought them to Jabesh, and buried their bones under the oak in Jabesh, and fasted seven days.

Jehoshaphat was alarmed, and set himself to seek to Yahweh. He proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah.

Then I proclaimed a fast there, at the river Ahava, that we might humble ourselves before our God, to seek from him a straight way for us, and for our little ones, and for all our possessions.

So we fasted and begged our God for this: and he granted our request.

Then Ezra rose up from before God’s house, and went into the room of Jehohanan the son of Eliashib. When he came there, he ate no bread, nor drank water; for he mourned because of their trespass of the captivity.

When I heard these words, I sat down and wept, and mourned several days; and I fasted and prayed before the God of heaven,

Now in the twenty-fourth day of this month the children of Israel were assembled with fasting, with sackcloth, and dirt on them.

In every province, wherever the king’s commandment and his decree came, there was great mourning among the Jews, and fasting, and weeping, and wailing; and many lay in sackcloth and ashes.

“Go, gather together all the Jews who are present in Shushan, and fast for me, and neither eat nor drink three days, night or day. I and my maidens will also fast the same way. Then I will go in to the king, which is against the law; and if I perish, I perish.”

to confirm these days of Purim in their appointed times, as Mordecai the Jew and Esther the queen had decreed, and as they had imposed upon themselves and their descendants, in the matter of the fastings and their cry.

But as for me, when they were sick, my clothing was sackcloth. I afflicted my soul with fasting. My prayer returned into my own bosom.

When I wept and I fasted, that was to my reproach.

My knees are weak through fasting. My body is thin and lacks fat.

‘Why have we fasted,’ say they, ‘and you don’t see? Why have we afflicted our soul, and you don’t notice?’ “Behold, in the day of your fast you find pleasure, and oppress all your laborers.

Behold, you fast for strife and contention, and to strike with the fist of wickedness. You don’t fast today so as to make your voice to be heard on high.

Is this the fast that I have chosen? A day for a man to humble his soul? Is it to bow down his head like a reed, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under himself? Will you call this a fast, and an acceptable day to Yahweh?

“Isn’t this the fast that I have chosen: to release the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and that you break every yoke?

Then you will call, and Yahweh will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say, ‘Here I am.’ “If you take away from among you the yoke, finger pointing, and speaking wickedly;

When they fast, I will not hear their cry; and when they offer burnt offering and meal offering, I will not accept them; but I will consume them by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence.”

Therefore you go, and read from the scroll which you have written from my mouth, Yahweh’s words, in the ears of the people in Yahweh’s house on the fast day. Also you shall read them in the ears of all Judah who come out of their cities.

Now in the fifth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, in the ninth month, all the people in Jerusalem, and all the people who came from the cities of Judah to Jerusalem, proclaimed a fast before Yahweh.

Arise, cry out in the night, at the beginning of the watches! Pour out your heart like water before the face of the Lord. Lift up your hands toward him for the life of your young children, who faint for hunger at the head of every street.

Your food which you shall eat shall be by weight, twenty shekels a day. From time to time you shall eat it.

It shall be the prince’s part to give the burnt offerings, the meal offerings, and the drink offerings, in the feasts, and on the new moons, and on the Sabbaths, in all the appointed feasts of the house of Israel. He shall prepare the sin offering, the meal offering, the burnt offering, and the peace offerings, to make atonement for the house of Israel.”

“Test your servants, I beg you, ten days; and let them give us vegetables to eat, and water to drink.

Then the king went to his palace, and passed the night fasting. No musical instruments were brought before him; and his sleep fled from him.

I set my face to the Lord God, to seek by prayer and petitions, with fasting and sackcloth and ashes.

In those days I, Daniel, was mourning three whole weeks.

I ate no pleasant bread. No meat or wine came into my mouth. I didn’t anoint myself at all, until three whole weeks were fulfilled.

The meal offering and the drink offering are cut off from Yahweh’s house. The priests, Yahweh’s ministers, mourn.

Put on sackcloth and mourn, you priests! Wail, you ministers of the altar. Come, lie all night in sackcloth, you ministers of my God, for the meal offering and the drink offering are withheld from your God’s house.

Sanctify a fast. Call a solemn assembly. Gather the elders, and all the inhabitants of the land, to the house of Yahweh, your God, and cry to Yahweh.

“Yet even now,” says Yahweh, “turn to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning.”

Blow the trumpet in Zion! Sanctify a fast. Call a solemn assembly.

Let the priests, the ministers of Yahweh, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, “Spare your people, Yahweh, and don’t give your heritage to reproach, that the nations should rule over them. Why should they say among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?’”

The people of Nineveh believed God; and they proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from their greatest even to their least.

He made a proclamation and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, “Let neither man nor animal, herd nor flock, taste anything; let them not feed, nor drink water;

but let them be covered with sackcloth, both man and animal, and let them cry mightily to God. Yes, let them turn everyone from his evil way, and from the violence that is in his hands.

and to speak to the priests of the house of Yahweh of Armies, and to the prophets, saying, “Should I weep in the fifth month, separating myself, as I have done these so many years?”

“Speak to all the people of the land, and to the priests, saying, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and in the seventh month for these seventy years, did you at all fast to me, really to me?

Yahweh of Armies says: “The fasts of the fourth, fifth, seventh, and tenth months shall be for the house of Judah joy and gladness, and cheerful feasts. Therefore love truth and peace.”

but I kept myself from eating,

Good is prayer with fasting, alms, and righteousness. A little with righteousness is better than much with unrighteousness. It is better to give alms than to lay up gold.

They, their wives, their children, their cattle, and every sojourner, hireling, and servant bought with their money put sackcloth on their loins.

The Lord heard their voice, and looked at their affliction. The people continued fasting many days in all Judea and Jerusalem before the sanctuary of the Lord Almighty.

And Joakim the high priest, and all the priests that stood before the Lord, and those who ministered to the Lord, had their loins dressed in sackcloth, and offered the continual burnt offering, the vows, and the free gifts of the people.

They had ashes on their hats. They cried to the Lord with all their power, that he would look upon all the house of Israel for good.

She made herself a tent upon the roof of her house, and put on sackcloth upon her loins. The garments of her widowhood were upon her.

And she fasted all the days of her widowhood, except the eves of the Sabbaths, the Sabbaths, the eves of the new moons, the new moons, and the feasts and joyful days of the house of Israel.

But Judith fell upon her face, and put ashes upon her head, and uncovered the sackcloth with which she was clothed. The incense of that evening was now being offered at Jerusalem in the house of God, and Judith cried to the Lord with a loud voice, and said,

And in every province where the letters were published, there was crying and lamentation and great mourning on the part of the Jews: they spread for themselves sackcloth and ashes.

Go and assemble the Jews that are in Susa, and fast you⌃ for me, and eat not and drink not for three days, night and day: and I also and my maidens will fast; and then I will go in to the king contrary to the law, even if I must die.

So Mordecai went and did all that Esther commanded him. [And he implored the Lord, making mention of all the works of the Lord; and he said, Lord God, king ruling over all, for all things are in your power, and there is no one that shall oppose you, in your purpose to save Israel. - For you have made the heaven and the earth and every wonderful thing in the world under heaven. And you are Lord of all, and there is no one who shall resist you Lord. You know all things: you know, Lord, that it is not in insolence, nor haughtiness, nor love of glory, that I have done this, to refuse to bow down to the haughty Haman. For I would gladly have kissed the soles of his feet for the safety of Israel. But I have done this, that I might not set the glory of man above the glory of God: and I will not worship any one except you, my Lord, and I will not do these things in haughtiness. And now, O Lord God, the King, the God of Abraam, spare your people, for our enemies are looking upon us to our destruction, and they have desired to destroy your ancient inheritance. Do not overlook your peculiar people, whom you have redeemed for yourself out of the land of Egypt. Hearken to my prayer, and be propitious to your inheritance, and turn our mourning into gladness, that we may live and sing praise to your name, O Lord; and do not utterly destroy the mouth of them that praise you, O Lord. And all Israel cried with all their might, for death was before their eyes. And queen Esther took refuge in the Lord, being taken as it were in the agony of death. And having taken off her glorious apparel, she put on garments of distress and mourning; and instead of grand perfumes she filled her head with ashes and dung, and she greatly brought down her body, and she filled every place of her glad adorning with the torn curls of her hair. And she implored the Lord God of Israel, and said, O my Lord, you alone are our king: help me who am destitute, and have no helper but you, for my danger is near at hand. I have heard from my birth, in the tribe of my kindred that you, Lord, took Israel out of all the nations, and our fathers out of all their kindred for a perpetual inheritance, and have wrought for them all that you have said. And now we have sinned before you, and you have delivered us into the hands of our enemies, because we honored their gods: you are righteous, O Lord. But now they have not been contented with the bitterness of our slavery, but have laid their hands on the hands of their idols, in order to abolish the decree of your mouth, and utterly to destroy your inheritances, and to stop the mouth of them that praise you, and to extinguish the glory of your house and your alter, and to open the mouth of the Gentiles to speak the praises of vanities, and in order that a mortal king should be admired for ever. O Lord, do not resign your sceptre to them that are not, and let them not laugh at our fall, but turn their counsel, against themselves, and make an example of him who has begun to injure us. Remember us , O Lord, manifest yourself in the time of our affliction, and encourage me, O King of gods, and ruler of all dominion. Put harmonious speech into my mouth before the lion, and turn his heart to hate him that fights against us, to the utter destruction of him that consent with him. But deliver us by your hand, and help me who am destitute, and have none but the, O Lord. You know all things, and know that I hate the glory of transgressors, and that I abhor the couch of the uncircumcised, and of every stranger. You know my necessity, for I abhor the symbol of my proud station, which is upon my head in the days of my splendor: I abhor it as a menstruous cloth, and I wear it not in the days of my tranquility. And your handmaid has not eaten at the table of Haman, and I have not honored the banquet of the king, neither have I drunk wine of libations. Neither has your handmaid rejoiced since the day of my promotion until now, except in you, O Lord God of Abraam. O god, who has power over all, hearken to the voice of the desperate, and deliver us from the hand of them that devise mischief; and deliver me from my fear.]

And Mordecai and Esther the queen appointed a fast for themselves privately, even at that time also having formed their plan against their own health.

Even so a man fasting for his sins, And going again, and doing the same; Who will listen to his prayer? And what profit has he in his humiliation?

Who brought a famine upon them, And by his zeal made them few in number.

And they wept, and fasted, and prayed before the Lord;

And they fasted that day, and put on sackcloth, and put ashes upon their heads, and tore their clothes,

So when they had all done the same thing together, beseeching the merciful Lord with weeping and fastings and prostration for three days without ceasing, Judas exhorted them and commanded they should join him for service.

And there I vowed a fast for the young men before our Lord, to desire of him a prosperous journey both for us and for our children and cattle that were with us:

Then rising up from the fast with my clothes and my holy garment tore, and bowing my knees, and stretching forth my hands to the Lord,

Ezra 10:6, etc. Then Esdras rising from the court of the temple went to the chamber of Jonas the son of Eliasib,

and lodged there, and did eat no bread nor drink water, mourning for the great iniquities of the multitude.

To show you such tokens I have leave; and if you will pray again, and weep as now, and fast seven days, you shall hear yet greater things than these.

And so I fasted seven days, mourning and weeping, like as Uriel the angel commanded me.

If therefore you will pray yet again, and fast seven days more, I shall yet tell you greater things than these.

And it came to pass after this, that I wept again, and fasted seven days in like manner, that I might fulfil the three weeks which he told me.

And that the faces of them which have used abstinence shall shine above the stars, whereas our faces shall be blacker than darkness?

Nevertheless if you will cease yet seven days more, (howbeit you shall not fast in them,

And I do now purpose not to return into the city, but here to stay, and neither to eat nor drink, but continually to mourn and to fast until I die.

but I sat in the field seven days, as the angel commanded me; and in those days I did eat only of the flowers of the field, and had my meat of the herbs.

Let no man therefore come to me now, nor seek after me these forty days.

Now John himself wore clothing made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey.