Moses was there with the Lord for forty days and forty nights; he did not eat food or drink water. He wrote the Ten Commandments, the words of the covenant, on the tablets.
For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathise with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin.
When I went up the mountain to receive the stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant the Lord made with you, I stayed on the mountain for forty days and forty nights. I did not eat food or drink water.
I fell down like the first time in the presence of the Lord for forty days and forty nights; I did not eat food or drink water because of all the sin you committed, doing what was evil in the Lord’s sight and angering him.
Then he issued a decree in Nineveh: By order of the king and his nobles: No person or animal, herd or flock, is to taste anything at all. They must not eat or drink water.
‘Go and assemble all the Jews who can be found in Susa and fast for me. Don’t eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my female servants will also fast in the same way. After that, I will go to the king even if it is against the law. If I perish, I perish.’