27 Bible Verses about Fasting, Practice Of

And the Lord said to me, Make no prayer for this people for their good. When they go without food, I will not give ear to their cry; when they give burned offerings and meal offerings, I will not take pleasure in them: but I will put an end to them by the sword and by need of food and by disease.

Make a loud cry, do not be quiet, let your voice be sounding like a horn, and make clear to my people their evil doings, and to the family of Jacob their sins. Though they make prayer to me every day, and take pleasure in the knowledge of my ways: like a nation which has done righteousness, and has not given up the rules of their God, they make requests to me for the right orders, it is their delight to come near to God. They say, Why have we kept ourselves from food, and you do not see it? why have we kept ourselves from pleasure, and you take no note of it? If, in the days when you keep from food, you take the chance to do your business, and get in your debts;read more.
If keeping from food makes you quickly angry, ready for fighting and giving blows with evil hands; your holy days are not such as to make your voice come to my ears on high. Have I given orders for such a day as this? a day for keeping yourselves from pleasure? is it only a question of the bent head, of putting on haircloth, and being seated in the dust? is this what seems to you a holy day, well-pleasing to the Lord? Is not this the holy day for which I have given orders: to let loose those who have wrongly been made prisoners, to undo the bands of the yoke, and to let the crushed go free, and every yoke be broken? Is it not to give your bread to those in need, and to let the poor who have no resting-place come into your house? to put a robe on the unclothed one when you see him, and not to keep your eyes shut for fear of seeing his flesh?

Then the word of the Lord of armies came to me, saying Say to all the people of the land and to the priests, When you went without food and gave yourselves to grief in the fifth and the seventh months for these seventy years, did you ever do it because of me? And when you are feasting and drinking, are you not doing it only for yourselves?read more.
Are not these the words which the Lord said to you by the earlier prophets, when Jerusalem was full of people and wealth, and the towns round about her and the South and the Lowland were peopled?

And when you go without food, be not sad-faced as the false-hearted are. For they go about with changed looks, so that men may see that they are going without food. Truly I say to you, They have their reward. But when you go without food, put oil on your head and make your face clean; So that no one may see that you are going without food, but your Father in secret; and your Father, who sees in secret, will give you your reward.

Then the disciples of John came to him, saying, Why do we and the Pharisees frequently go without food, but your disciples do not? And Jesus said to them, Will the friends of the newly-married man be sad as long as he is with them? But the days will come when he will be taken away from them, and then will they go without food.

And John's disciples and the Pharisees were taking no food: and they came and said to him, Why do John's disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees go without food, but your disciples do not? And Jesus said to them, Will the friends of a newly-married man go without food while he is with them? as long as they have him with them they will not go without food. But the days will come when the husband will be taken away from them, and then they will go without food.

And they said to him, The disciples of John frequently go without food, and make prayers, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees; but your disciples take food and drink. And Jesus said, Are you able to make the friends of the newly-married man go without food when he is with them? But the days will come when he will be taken away from them, and then they will go without food.

And all the people were with Saul, about twenty thousand men, and the fight was general through all the hill-country of Ephraim; but Saul made a great error that day, by putting the people under an oath, saying, Let that man be cursed who takes food before evening comes and I have given punishment to those who are against me. So the people had not a taste of food. And there was honey on the face of the field, and all the people came to the honey, the bees having gone from it; But not a man put his hand to his mouth for fear of the curse.read more.
But Jonathan, having no knowledge of the oath his father had put on the people, stretching out the rod which was in his hand, put the end of it in the honey, and put it to his mouth; then his eyes were made bright. Then one of the people said to him, Your father put the people under an oath, saying, Let that man be cursed who takes any food this day. And the people were feeble, needing food. Then Jonathan said, My father has made trouble come on the land: now see how bright my eyes have become because I have taken a little of this honey. How much more if the people had freely taken their food from the goods of those who were fighting against them! would there not have been much greater destruction among the Philistines?

But as for me, when they were ill I put on the clothing of sorrow: I went without food and was sad, and my prayer came back again to my heart.

Hearing these words, Ahab, in great grief, put haircloth on his flesh and went without food, sleeping in haircloth, and going about quietly. Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying, Do you see how Ahab has made himself low before me? because he has made himself low before me, I will not send the evil in his life-time, but in his son's time I will send the evil on his family.

Then I gave orders for a time of going without food, there by the river Ahava, so that we might make ourselves low before our God in prayer, requesting from him a straight way for us and for our little ones and for all our substance.

My bitter weeping, and my going without food, were turned to my shame.

So they came together to Mizpah, and got water, draining it out before the Lord, and they took no food that day, and they said, We have done evil against the Lord. And Samuel was judge of the children of Israel in Mizpah.

Now on the twenty-fourth day of this month the children of Israel came together, taking no food and putting haircloth and dust on their bodies. And the seed of Israel made themselves separate from all the men of other nations, publicly requesting forgiveness for their sins and the wrongdoing of their fathers. And for a fourth part of the day, upright in their places, they were reading from the book of the law of their God; and for a fourth part of the day they were requesting forgiveness and worshipping the Lord their God.

Put haircloth round you and give yourselves to sorrow, you priests; give cries of grief, you servants of the altar: come in, and, clothed in haircloth, let the night go past, you servants of my God: for the meal offering and the drink offering have been kept back from the house of your God. Let a time be fixed for going without food, have a holy meeting, let the old men, even all the people of the land, come together to the house of the Lord your God, crying out to the Lord.

But even now, says the Lord, come back to me with all your heart, keeping from food, with weeping and with sorrow: Let your hearts be broken, and not your clothing, and come back to the Lord your God: for he is full of grace and pity, slow to be angry and great in mercy, ready to be turned from his purpose of punishment. May it not be that he will again let his purpose be changed and let a blessing come after him, even a meal offering and a drink offering for the Lord your God?read more.
Let a horn be sounded in Zion, let a time be fixed for going without food, have a holy meeting:

Then, after hearing these words, for some days I gave myself up to weeping and sorrow, seated on the earth; and taking no food I made prayer to the God of heaven,

Then I gave orders for a time of going without food, there by the river Ahava, so that we might make ourselves low before our God in prayer, requesting from him a straight way for us and for our little ones and for all our substance. For I would not, for shame, make request to the king for a band of armed men and horsemen to give us help against those who might make attacks on us on the way: for we had said to the king, The hand of our God is on his servants for good, but his power and his wrath are against all those who are turned away from him. So we went without food, requesting our God for this: and his ear was open to our prayer.

And turning my face to the Lord God, I gave myself up to prayer, requesting his grace, going without food, in haircloth and dust.

And he says to them, Because of your little faith: for truly I say to you, If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, Be moved from this place to that; and it will be moved; and nothing will be impossible to you.

And he said to them, Nothing will make this sort come out but prayer.

She had been a widow for eighty-four years); she was in the Temple at all times, worshipping with prayers and going without food, night and day.

And they said to him, The disciples of John frequently go without food, and make prayers, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees; but your disciples take food and drink.

Then, after prayer and going without food they put their hands on them, and sent them away.

And when they had made selection of some to be rulers in every church, and had given themselves to prayer and kept themselves from food, they put them into the care of the Lord in whom they had faith.

Let the husband give to the wife what is right; and let the wife do the same to the husband. The wife has not power over her body, but the husband; and in the same way the husband has not power over his body, but the wife. Do not keep back from one another what is right, but only for a short time, and by agreement, so that you may give yourselves to prayer, and come together again; so that Satan may not get the better of you through your loss of self-control.

And while they were doing the Lord's work, and going without food, the Holy Spirit said, Let Barnabas and Saul be given to me for the special work for which they have been marked out by me.