Why have we fasted, [they say], and thou see not? We have afflicted our soul, and thou take no knowledge. Behold, in the day of your fast ye find pleasure, and exact from all your laborers.
And it shall be a statute forever to you. In the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, ye shall afflict your souls, and shall do no manner of work, the home-born, or the stranger who sojourns among you.
Then I consulted with myself, and contended with the ranking men and the rulers, and said to them, Ye exact usury, everyone of his brother. And I held a great assembly against them.
But having answered, he said to his father, Lo, so many years do I serve thee, and I never passed by a commandment of thine, and yet thou never gave me a goat that I might be merry with my friends.
I was angry with my people. I profaned my inheritance, and gave them into thy hand. Thou showed them no mercy. Upon the aged thou have laid thy yoke very heavily.
However on the tenth day of this seventh month is the day of atonement. It shall be a holy convocation to you, and ye shall afflict your souls, and ye shall offer an offering made by fire to LORD.
Then I proclaimed a fast there, at the river Ahava, that we might humble ourselves before our God, to seek of him a straight way for us, and for our little ones, and for all our substance.