Isaiah 58:4-6

New Living Translation

⁴ What good is fasting
    when you keep on fighting and quarreling?
This kind of fasting
    will never get you anywhere with me.
⁵ You humble yourselves
    by going through the motions of penance,
bowing your heads
    like reeds bending in the wind.
You dress in burlap
    and cover yourselves with ashes.
Is this what you call fasting?
    Do you really think this will please the Lord?

⁶ “No, this is the kind of fasting I want:
Free those who are wrongly imprisoned;
    lighten the burden of those who work for you.
Let the oppressed go free,
    and remove the chains that bind people.