Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore glorify God with your body.

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.

He will be the sure foundation for your times, a storehouse of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge. The fear of the LORD is Zion’s treasure.

“Why have we fasted, and You have not seen? Why have we humbled ourselves, and You have not noticed?” “Behold, on the day of your fast, you do as you please, and you oppress all your workers.

Here is what I have seen to be good and fitting: to eat and drink, and to find satisfaction in all the labor one does under the sun during the few days of life that God has given him—for this is his lot.

You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.

Set a guard, O LORD, over my mouth; keep watch at the door of my lips.

So he got up and ate and drank. And strengthened by that food, he walked forty days and forty nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God.

“Have you seen how Ahab has humbled himself before Me? Because he has humbled himself before Me, I will not bring the calamity during his days, but I will bring it upon his house in the days of his son.”

But the LORD said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or height, for I have rejected him; the LORD does not see as man does. For man sees the outward appearance, but the LORD sees the heart.”

They mourned and wept and fasted until evening for Saul and his son Jonathan, and for the people of the LORD and the house of Israel, because they had fallen by the sword.

After Nathan had gone home, the LORD struck the child that Uriah’s wife had borne to David, and he became ill. David pleaded with God for the boy. He fasted and went into his house and spent the night lying in sackcloth on the ground. The elders of his household stood beside him to help him up from the ground, but he was unwilling and would not eat anything with them. On the seventh day the child died. But David’s servants were afraid to tell him that the child was dead, for they said, “Look, while the child was alive, we spoke to him, and he would not listen to us. So how can we tell him the child is dead? He may even harm himself.” When David saw that his servants were whispering to one another, he perceived that the child was dead. So he asked his servants, “Is the child dead?” “He is dead,” they replied. . . .

David pleaded with God for the boy. He fasted and went into his house and spent the night lying in sackcloth on the ground. The elders of his household stood beside him to help him up from the ground, but he was unwilling and would not eat anything with them. On the seventh day the child died. But David’s servants were afraid to tell him that the child was dead, for they said, “Look, while the child was alive, we spoke to him, and he would not listen to us. So how can we tell him the child is dead? He may even harm himself.”

Then all the people came and urged David to eat something while it was still day, but David took an oath, saying, “May God punish me, and ever so severely, if I taste bread or anything else before the sun sets!”

Instead, you must eat them in the presence of the LORD your God at the place the LORD your God will choose—you, your sons and daughters, your menservants and maidservants, and the Levite within your gates. Rejoice before the LORD your God in all you do,

To that place you are to bring your burnt offerings and sacrifices, your tithes and heave offerings, your vow offerings and freewill offerings, as well as the firstborn of your herds and flocks.

There, in the presence of the LORD your God, you and your households shall eat and rejoice in all you do, because the LORD your God has blessed you.

When you eat and are satisfied, you are to bless the LORD your God for the good land that He has given you.

Then I fell down before the LORD for forty days and forty nights, as I had done the first time. I did not eat bread or drink water because of all the sin you had committed in doing what was evil in the sight of the LORD and provoking Him to anger.

When I went up on the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant that the LORD made with you, I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights. I ate no bread and drank no water.

When I went up on the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant that the LORD made with you, I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights. I ate no bread and drank no water. Then the LORD gave me the two stone tablets, inscribed by the finger of God with the exact words that the LORD spoke to you out of the fire on the mountain on the day of the assembly. And at the end of forty days and forty nights, the LORD gave me the two stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant. And the LORD said to me, “Get up and go down from here at once, for your people, whom you brought out of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. How quickly they have turned aside from the way that I commanded them! They have made for themselves a molten image.” The LORD also said to me, “I have seen this people, and they are indeed a stiff-necked people. . . .

Nothing is better for a man than to eat and drink and enjoy his work. I have also seen that this is from the hand of God. For apart from Him, who can eat and who can find enjoyment?

Then Esther sent this reply to Mordecai: “Go and assemble all the Jews who can be found in Susa, and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day, and I and my maidens will fast as you do. After that, I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish!”

Then Ezra withdrew from before the house of God and walked to the chamber of Jehohanan son of Eliashib. And while he stayed there, he ate no food and drank no water, because he was mourning over the unfaithfulness of the exiles. And a proclamation was issued throughout Judah and Jerusalem that all the exiles should gather at Jerusalem. Whoever failed to appear within three days would forfeit all his property, according to the counsel of the leaders and elders, and would himself be expelled from the assembly of the exiles. So within the three days, all the men of Judah and Benjamin assembled in Jerusalem, and on the twentieth day of the ninth month, all the people sat in the square at the house of God, trembling regarding this matter and because of the heavy rain.

And there by the Ahava Canal I proclaimed a fast, so that we might humble ourselves before our God and ask Him for a safe journey for us and our children, with all our possessions.

I will sing for my beloved a song of his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. He dug it up and cleared the stones and planted the finest vines. He built a watchtower in the middle and dug out a winepress as well. He waited for the vineyard to yield good grapes, but the fruit it produced was sour! “And now, O dwellers of Jerusalem and men of Judah, I exhort you to judge between Me and My vineyard. What more could I have done for My vineyard than I already did for it? Why, when I expected sweet grapes, did it bring forth sour fruit? Now I will tell you what I am about to do to My vineyard: I will take away its hedge, and it will be consumed; I will tear down its wall, and it will be trampled. . . .

I will be found by you, declares the LORD, and I will restore you from captivity and gather you from all the nations and places to which I have banished you, declares the LORD. I will restore you to the place from which I sent you into exile.”

Then all the Israelites from Dan to Beersheba and from the land of Gilead came out, and the congregation assembled as one man before the LORD at Mizpah.

Now the LORD spoke to Moses after the death of two of Aaron’s sons when they approached the presence of the LORD. And the LORD said to Moses: “Tell your brother Aaron not to enter freely into the Most Holy Place behind the veil in front of the mercy seat on the ark, or else he will die, because I appear in the cloud above the mercy seat. This is how Aaron is to enter the Holy Place: with a young bull for a sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering. He is to wear the sacred linen tunic, with linen undergarments. He must tie a linen sash around him and put on the linen turban. These are holy garments, and he must bathe himself with water before he wears them. And he shall take from the congregation of Israel two male goats for a sin offering and one ram for a burnt offering. . . .

This is to be a permanent statute for you: On the tenth day of the seventh month, you shall humble yourselves and not do any work—whether the native or the foreigner who resides among you—

It will be a Sabbath of complete rest for you, and you shall humble yourselves. From the evening of the ninth day of the month until the following evening you are to keep your Sabbath.”

I will keep Your statutes; do not utterly forsake me.

Yet when they were ill, I put on sackcloth; I humbled myself with fasting, but my prayers returned unanswered.

Then the angel told me to write, “Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” And he said to me, “These are the true words of God.”