OLD TESTAMENT

LEVITICUS 16:29 & 31
"On the appointed day in early autumn, you must spend the day fasting and not do any work. This is a permanent law for you, and it applies to those who are Israelites by birth, as well as to the foreigners living among you. It will be a Shabbat day of total rest, and you will spend the day in fasting. This is a permanent law for you.

LEVITICUS 23:32
This will be a Shabbat day of total rest for you, and on that day you must humble yourselves. This time of rest and fasting will begin the evening before the Day of Atonement and extend until evening of that day."

1 KINGS 21:9
In her letters she commanded: "Call the citizens together for fasting and prayer and give Naboth a place of honour.

ESTHER 9:31
These letters established the Festival of Purim-an annual celebration of these days at the appointed time, decreed by both Mordecai the Jew and Queen Esther. (The people decided to observe this festival, just as they had decided for themselves and their descendants to establish the times of fasting and mourning.)

PSALMS 109:24
My knees are weak from fasting, and I am skin and bones.

ISAIAH 1:13
The incense you bring me is a stench in my nostrils! Your celebrations of the new moon and the Shabbat day, and your special days for fasting-even your most pious meetings-are all sinful and false. I want nothing more to do with them.

ISAIAH 58:3,4,5 & 6
'We have fasted before you!' they say. 'Why aren't you impressed? We have done much penance, and you don't even notice it!' "I will tell you why! It's because you are living for yourselves even while you are fasting. You keep right on oppressing your workers. What good is fasting when you keep on fighting and quarrelling? This kind of fasting will never get you anywhere with me. You humble yourselves by going through the motions of penance, bowing your heads like a blade of grass in the wind. You dress in sackcloth and cover yourselves with ashes. Is this what you call fasting? Do you really think this will please Adonai? "No, the kind of fasting I want calls you to free those who are wrongly imprisoned and to stop oppressing those who work for you. Treat them fairly and give them what they earn.

JEREMIAH 36:6 & 9
So you go to the Temple on the next day of fasting, and read the messages from Adonai that are on this scroll. On that day people will be there from all over Judah. This happened on the day of sacred fasting held in late autumn, during the fifth year of the reign of Jehoiakim son of Josiah. People from all over Judah came to attend the services at the Temple on that day.

DANIEL 6:18
Then the king returned to his palace and spent the night fasting. He refused his usual entertainment and couldn't sleep at all that night.

DANIEL 9:3
So I turned to Adonai YHVH and pleaded with him in prayer and fasting. I wore rough sackcloth and sprinkled myself with ashes.

JOEL 1:14
Announce a time of fasting; call the people together for a solemn meeting. Bring the leaders and all the people into the Temple of Adonai your YHVH, and cry out to him there.

JOEL 2:12 & 15
That is why Adonai says, "Turn to me now, while there is time! Give me your hearts. Come with fasting, weeping, and mourning. Blow the trumpet in Jerusalem! Announce a time of fasting; call the people together for a solemn meeting.

ZECHARIAH 7:5
"Say to all your people and your priests, 'During those seventy years of exile, when you fasted and mourned in the summer and at the festival in early autumn, was it really for me that you were fasting?