About fasting and almsgiving
« Now , it happened in the fifth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah , king of Judah , in the ninth month , that all the people in Jerusalem and all the people who came from the cities of Judah to Jerusalem , proclaimed a fast before God ». ( Jeremiah [ Hebrew ]: 36 / 9 - The Eastern Orthodox Bible ( EOB )) * « And when they were sick , I dressed myself in sackcloth , humbled my soul with fasting , and prayed with my head bowed to my breast ». ( Ps : 36 / 13 - 35 MT = 34 LXX ) * « I proclaimed there a fast , at the river Aue , that we should humble ourselves before our God , to seek of Him a straight way for us and for our children and for all our property ». ( Ezra : 8 / 21 ) * « The men of Nineve believed God and proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloths , from the greatest of them to the least of them ». ( Jonah : 3 / 5 .) * « When Jesus entered into the house , His disciples asked Him privately , “ Why could we not we cast it out ?” He told them , “ This kind can come out by nothing , except by prayer and fasting 1 ”.»
( Mark : 9 / 28-29 .) * « Jesus said to them , “ Can the friends of the bridegroom mourn , as long as the bridegroom is with them ? The days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them , and then , they will fast ». ( Matt : 9 / 15 ; Mark : 2 / 20 ; Luke : 5 / 35 )
About fasting and almsgiving Selections from the Word of God 2 on this topic
1 . About fasting
A well-satiated body leads the soul into the hand of the devil . In the past , the old people had only their own skin on their body . Why ? Because it was once fat and brought the soul under the slavery of the body . Then what did he say ? „ Wait , you body , for I put you under a yoke ”, and he put the body under a yoke . What kind of yoke ? Fasting and praying . The heaviest yoke for the body is fasting . Be careful , brother , fasting is considered as chains for the body . It is the best weapon to prevent the body from lusting : fasting . You should not believe that by fasting you got sick . It is found into the book that the flesh is the enemy to the soul . Take heed of My advice . If someone says that you get sick because you fast , it is not true . The Christians from the past raised the dead ; they gave sight . You should remind fasting for specific things . If you fasted and you did not speak what you did it for , it was like an unwritten paper . If you have a father , you should fast to get him out . I show you a martyr who , after she died , someone got her out by fasting . Instead of having a hundred of memorial services , the best action is to write days of fasting and you will get someone out of his death . Nothing is holier
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CT omits “ and fasting ” which is found in Byzantine manuscripts including PT . ( E . O . B . – The Eastern Orthodox Bible ) 2
God ’ s Word in Romania , translated by I . A ., redactor note .
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