Bible Verses About Fasting
What is Fasting?
Fasting is the willful refrainment from eating for a period of time. In a biblical context, fasting is the denial of physical and natural desires of the body in order to draw a closer spiritual connection with God.
Scriptures on Fasting
… and then was a widow until she was eighty-four.[a] She never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying.
Luke 2:37 New International Version (NIV)
So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off.
Acts 13:3 New International Version (NIV)
14 Then John’s disciples came and asked him, “How is it that we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?”
15 Jesus answered, “How can the guests of the bridegroom mourn while he is with them? The time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; then they will fast.
16 “No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch will pull away from the garment, making the tear worse. 17 Neither do people pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.”
Matthew 9:14-17 New International Version (NIV)
After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.
Matthew 4:2 New International Version (NIV)
16 “When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show others they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 17 But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, 18 so that it will not be obvious to others that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
Matthew 6:16-18 New International Version (NIV)
“Even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.”
Joel 2:12 New International Version (NIV)
“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?
Isaiah 58:6 New International Version (NIV)
21 There, by the Ahava Canal, I proclaimed a fast, so that we might humble ourselves before our God and ask him for a safe journey for us and our children, with all our possessions. 22 I was ashamed to ask the king for soldiers and horsemen to protect us from enemies on the road, because we had told the king, “The gracious hand of our God is on everyone who looks to him, but his great anger is against all who forsake him.” 23 So we fasted and petitioned our God about this, and he answered our prayer.
Ezra 8:21-23 New International Version (NIV)
Moses was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights without eating bread or drinking water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant—the Ten Commandments.
Exodus 34:28 New International Version (NIV)