fasting for family

¹And so I beg you, first of all, to make supplications, prayers, petitions, and thanksgivings for all men, ²for kings, and for all who are in high places, so that we may lead a quiet and tranquil life in all piety and chastity. ³For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, ⁴who wants all men to be saved and to arrive at an acknowledgment of the truth. ⁵For there is one God, and one mediator of God and of men, the man Christ Jesus, ⁶who gave himself as a redemption for all, as a testimony in its proper time.

³I ate no desirable bread, and neither meat, nor wine, entered my mouth, neither was I anointed with ointment, until the three weeks of days were completed.

²³And so we fasted and begged our God for this; and as a result, we prospered.

⁴And when I had heard this manner of words, I sat down, and I wept and mourned for many days. I fasted and prayed before the face of the God of heaven.

¹²Now, therefore, the Lord says: “Be converted to me with your whole heart, in fasting and weeping and mourning.”

¹Therefore, set aside all malice and all deceitfulness, as well as falseness and envy and every detraction. ²Like newborn infants, desire the milk of reasonableness without guile, so that by this you may increase unto salvation, ³if it is true that you have tasted that the Lord is sweet. ⁴And approaching him as if he were a living stone, rejected by men, certainly, but elect and honored by God, ⁵be also yourselves like living stones, built upon him, a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, so as to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. ⁶Because of this, Scripture asserts: “Behold, I am setting in Zion a chief cornerstone, elect, precious. And whoever will have believed in him will not be confounded.”

³Then, fasting and praying and imposing their hands upon them, they sent them away.

¹⁶“Go and gather together all the Jews whom you will find in Susa, and pray for me. Neither eat nor drink for three days and three nights, and I will fast with my handmaids similarly, and then I will go in to the king, doing what is against the law, not having been called, and so expose myself to mortal danger.”

¹⁶And when you fast, do not choose to become gloomy, like the hypocrites. For they alter their faces, so that their fasting may be apparent to men. Amen I say to you, that they have received their reward. ¹⁷But as for you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, ¹⁸so that your fasting will not be apparent to men, but to your Father, who is in secret. And your Father, who sees in secret, will repay you.

²Now as they were ministering for the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said to them: “Separate Saul and Barnabas for me, for the work for which I have selected them.”

¹⁶And when you fast, do not choose to become gloomy, like the hypocrites. For they alter their faces, so that their fasting may be apparent to men. Amen I say to you, that they have received their reward.

²⁸Therefore, he was in that place with the Lord for forty days and forty nights; he did not eat bread and he did not drink water, and he wrote on the tablets the ten words of the covenant.

¹³But as for me, when they were harassing me, I was clothed with haircloth. I humbled my soul with fasting, and my prayer will become my sinews.