Matthew 6:16

³‘Why have we fasted,’ they say, ‘and you don’t see? Why have we afflicted our soul, and you don’t notice?’ “Behold, in the day of your fast you find pleasure, and oppress all your laborers. ⁴Behold, you fast for strife and contention, and to strike with the fist of wickedness. You don’t fast today so as to make your voice to be heard on high. ⁵Is this the fast that I have chosen? A day for a man to humble his soul? Is it to bow down his head like a reed, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under himself? Will you call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the LORD?

^14[+] Then John’s disciples came to him, saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples don’t fast?”

¹⁵Jesus said to them, “Can the friends of the bridegroom mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast.

⁴When I heard these words, I sat down and wept, and mourned several days; and I fasted and prayed before the God ^[+] of heaven,

³I set my face to the Lord God, to seek by prayer and petitions, with fasting and sackcloth and ashes.

¹⁰When I wept and I fasted, that was to my reproach.

¹²I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all that I get.’

²³When they had appointed elders for them in every assembly, and had prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord on whom they had believed.

¹⁶“Go, gather together all the Jews who are present in Susa, and fast for me, and neither eat nor drink three days, night or day. I and my maidens will also fast the same way. Then I will go in to the king, which is against the law; and if I perish, I perish.”

¹⁸John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting, and they came and asked him, “Why do John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples don’t fast?”

¹³But as for me, when they were sick, my clothing was sackcloth. I afflicted my soul with fasting. My prayer returned into my own bosom.