⁴ Yes! While you are fasting,
    you are also quarrelling and you are fighting.
    You hit each other with your fists.
If you want your prayers to reach me in heaven,
    you cannot continue to fast in the way that you do today.
⁵ The way that you fast does not please me at all:
You make yourselves humble for a day.
You bend down your head,
    like a piece of weak grass.
You lie down on sackcloth and ashes.
Do you think that you are really fasting when you do that?
    Do you think that it pleases me, the Lord?
⁶ This is the way that I want you to fast:
You must remove the chains
    from prisoners who should not be in prison.
You must stop being cruel
    to the people who work for you.
You must let people who are in pain go free.
You must break the yoke
    of work that is too hard for weak people.^[a]