“Look, you fast for strife and contention, and to strike with the fist of wrongness. You do not fast as you do this day, to make your voice heard on high.
“It could be that they present their supplication before יהוה, and they turn back, each one from his evil way. For great is the displeasure and the wrath that יהוה has spoken against this people.”
and shall swear, ‘As יהוה lives,’ in truth, in right-ruling, and in righteousness – then nations shall bless themselves in Him, and they shall boast in Him!”
“Say to them, ‘As I live,’ declares the Master יהוה, ‘I have no pleasure in the death of the wrong, but that the wrong turn from his way and live. Turn back, turn back from your evil ways! For why should you die, O house of Yisra’ĕ
Gird yourselves and lament, you priests. Wail, you attendants of the altar. Come, lie all night in sackcloth, you attendants of my Elohim. For the grain offering and the drink offering are withheld from the house of your Elohim.
speaking to the priests who belonged to the House of יהוה of hosts, and to the prophets, saying, “Should I weep in the fifth month and fast as I have done for so many years?”
“Speak to all the people of the land, and to the priests, saying, ‘When you fasted and lamented in the fifth and seventh months all these seventy years, did you truly fast for Me – for Me?
And they gathered to Mitspah and drew water, and poured it out before יהוה. And they fasted that day, and said there, “We have sinned against יהוה.” And Shemu’ĕ