The Holy Bible – Knox Translation
The Prophecy of Isaias
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Chapter 58
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1
Cry aloud, never ceasing, raise thy voice like a trumpet-call, and tell my people of their transgressions, call the sons of Jacob to account.
2
Day after day they besiege me, arraign my dealings with them, a nation, you would think, ever dutiful, one that never swerved from the divine will. Proof they ask of my faithfulness, would fain bring a plea against their God.
3
Why hadst thou no eyes for it, say they, when we fasted; why didst thou pass by unheeding, when we humbled ourselves before thee?

Fasting, when you follow your own whim, distrain upon all your debtors!
4
Naught comes of it but law-suit and quarrelling; angry blows profane it. A better fast you must keep than of old, ere plea of yours makes itself heard above.
5
With such fasting, with a day’s penance, should I be content? Is it enough that a man should bow down to earth, make his bed on sackcloth and ashes? Think you, by such a fasting-day, to win the Lord’s favour?
6
Nay, fast of mine is something other. The false claim learn to forgo, ease the insupportable burden, set free the over-driven; away with every yoke that galls!
7
Share thy bread with the hungry, give the poor and the vagrant a welcome to thy house; meet thou the naked, clothe him; from thy own flesh and blood turn not away.
8
Then, sudden as the dawn, the welcome light shall break on thee, in a moment thy health shall find a new spring; divine favour shall lead thee on thy journey, brightness of the Lord’s presence close thy ranks behind.
9
Then the Lord will listen to thee when thou callest on him; cry out, and he will answer, I am here at thy side.

Banish from thy midst oppression, and the finger pointed scornfully, and the plotting of harm,
10
spend thyself giving food to the hungry, relieving the afflicted; then shall light spring up for thee in the darkness, and thy dusk shall be noonday;
11
the Lord will give thee rest continually, fill thy soul with comfort, thy body with ease. Not more secure the well-watered garden, the spring whose waters never fail.
12
Rebuilt, in thy land, the immemorial ruins; restored, the foundations of long ago; this thy task shall be, to repair the broken walls, to reclaim the by-ways.
13
Walk warily, keep my sabbath unprofaned. Here is a day I have sanctified, not for thy self-pleasing; a precious thing the Lord has made holy and honourable; and wilt thou dishonour it? Wilt thou go thy own way, use it for thy own pleasure, while it away in gossip?
14
Thou shalt yet have joy in the Lord; I will carry thee aloft, high above the high places of the land, satisfy thy longing for Jacob’s patrimony; the Lord’s lips have promised it.