February 16th, 2004, Friday after Ash Wednesday.

A reading from the book of the prophet Isaiah.

Thus says the Lord God,

cry out full-throated and unsparingly.

Lift up your voice like a trumpet blast.

Tell my people their wickedness and the House of Jacob their sins.

They seek me day after day and desire to know my ways,

like a nation that has done what is just and not abandoned the law of their God.

They ask me to declare what is due them, pleased to gain access their God. They asked me to declare what is due to them,

pleased to gain access to God.

Why do we fast and you do not see it?

Afflict ourselves and you take no note of it.

Lo, on your fast day, you carry out your own pursuits

and drive all your laborers.

Yes, your fast ends in quarreling and fighting, striking with wicked claw.

Would that today you might fast so as to make your voice heard on high?

Is this the manner of fasting, I wish, of keeping a day of penance, that a man bow his head like a reed, and lie in sackcloth and ashes?

Do you call this a fast a day acceptable to the Lord?

This, rather, is the fasting that I wish. Releasing those bound unjustly,

untying the thongs of the yoke.

Setting free the oppressed, breaking every yoke.

Sharing your bread with the hungry,

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