Is this the kind of fasting I have chosen? Should people humble themselves for ⌞only⌟ a day? Is fasting just bowing your head like a cattail and making your bed from sackcloth and ashes? Is this what you call fasting? Is this an acceptable day to the Lord?
Incense that comes from Sheba is no good to me. Sugar cane that comes from a distant land is no good to me. I won’t accept your burnt offerings. I’m not pleased with your sacrifices.
You have paid me in full, and I have more than enough. Now that Epaphroditus has brought me your gifts, you have filled my needs. Your gifts are a soothing aroma, a sacrifice that God accepts and with which he is pleased.
We ask this so that you will live the kind of lives that prove you belong to the Lord. Then you will want to please him in every way as you grow in producing every kind of good work by this knowledge about God.
Therefore, we must be thankful that we have a kingdom that cannot be shaken. Because we are thankful, we must serve God with fear and awe in a way that pleases him.
What credit do you deserve if you endure a beating for doing something wrong? But if you endure suffering for doing something good, God is pleased with you.
You come to him as living stones, a spiritual house that is being built into a holy priesthood. So offer spiritual sacrifices that God accepts through Jesus Christ.
David fastened Saul’s sword over his clothes and tried to walk, but he had never practiced doing this. “I can’t walk in these things,” David told Saul. “I’ve never had any practice doing this.” So David took all those things off.
