81 Bible Verses about A Fasting For Beginners

Matthew 6:16-18 ESV / 10 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

“And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

Acts 14:23 ESV / 9 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

And when they had appointed elders for them in every church, with prayer and fasting they committed them to the Lord in whom they had believed.

Exodus 34:28 ESV / 7 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

So he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights. He neither ate bread nor drank water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.

Luke 2:37 ESV / 6 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

And then as a widow until she was eighty-four. She did not depart from the temple, worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day.

Matthew 9:14-15 ESV / 6 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Then the disciples of John came to him, saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?” And Jesus said to them, “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.

Matthew 6:16 ESV / 5 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

“And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.

Matthew 4:2 ESV / 5 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.

Daniel 9:3 ESV / 5 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Then I turned my face to the Lord God, seeking him by prayer and pleas for mercy with fasting and sackcloth and ashes.

Nehemiah 1:4 ESV / 5 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

As soon as I heard these words I sat down and wept and mourned for days, and I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven.

1 Corinthians 7:5 ESV / 4 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.

Acts 13:3 ESV / 4 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Then after fasting and praying they laid their hands on them and sent them off.

Acts 13:2 ESV / 4 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.”

Acts 13:2-3 ESV / 4 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” Then after fasting and praying they laid their hands on them and sent them off.

Acts 10:30 ESV / 4 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

And Cornelius said, “Four days ago, about this hour, I was praying in my house at the ninth hour, and behold, a man stood before me in bright clothing

Acts 9:9 ESV / 4 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

And for three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank.

Matthew 4:1-11 ESV / 4 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” But he answered, “It is written, “‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple ...

Joel 2:12 ESV / 4 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

“Yet even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;

Daniel 10:3 ESV / 4 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

I ate no delicacies, no meat or wine entered my mouth, nor did I anoint myself at all, for the full three weeks.

Isaiah 58:1-14 ESV / 4 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

“Cry aloud; do not hold back; lift up your voice like a trumpet; declare to my people their transgression, to the house of Jacob their sins. Yet they seek me daily and delight to know my ways, as if they were a nation that did righteousness and did not forsake the judgment of their God; they ask of me righteous judgments; they delight to draw near to God. ‘Why have we fasted, and you see it not? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you take no knowledge of it?’ Behold, in the day of your fast you seek your own pleasure, and oppress all your workers. Behold, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to hit with a wicked fist. Fasting like yours this day will not make your voice to be heard on high. Is such the fast that I choose, a day for a person to humble himself? Is it to bow down his head like a reed, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? Will you call this a fast, and a day acceptable to the Lord? ...

Psalm 69:10 ESV / 4 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

When I wept and humbled my soul with fasting, it became my reproach.

Esther 4:16 ESV / 4 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

“Go, gather all the Jews to be found in Susa, and hold a fast on my behalf, and do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my young women will also fast as you do. Then I will go to the king, though it is against the law, and if I perish, I perish.”

Ezra 8:21-23 ESV / 4 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Then I proclaimed a fast there, at the river Ahava, that we might humble ourselves before our God, to seek from him a safe journey for ourselves, our children, and all our goods. For I was ashamed to ask the king for a band of soldiers and horsemen to protect us against the enemy on our way, since we had told the king, “The hand of our God is for good on all who seek him, and the power of his wrath is against all who forsake him.” So we fasted and implored our God for this, and he listened to our entreaty.

2 Chronicles 20:3 ESV / 4 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Then Jehoshaphat was afraid and set his face to seek the Lord, and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah.

2 Samuel 1:12 ESV / 4 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

And they mourned and wept and fasted until evening for Saul and for Jonathan his son and for the people of the Lord and for the house of Israel, because they had fallen by the sword.

Leviticus 16:29 ESV / 4 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

“And it shall be a statute to you forever that in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you shall afflict yourselves and shall do no work, either the native or the stranger who sojourns among you.

James 5:16 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.

2 Corinthians 11:27 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

In toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure.

Acts 27:33 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

As day was about to dawn, Paul urged them all to take some food, saying, “Today is the fourteenth day that you have continued in suspense and without food, having taken nothing.

Luke 5:35 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in those days.”

Luke 4:2 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

For forty days, being tempted by the devil. And he ate nothing during those days. And when they were ended, he was hungry.

Matthew 17:21 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Matthew 17:20 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

He said to them, “Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.”

Matthew 9:15 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

And Jesus said to them, “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.

Matthew 6:1-34 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

“Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. “Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. “And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. ...

Isaiah 58:6 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

“Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?

Isaiah 58:3 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

‘Why have we fasted, and you see it not? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you take no knowledge of it?’ Behold, in the day of your fast you seek your own pleasure, and oppress all your workers.

Psalm 35:13 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

But I, when they were sick— I wore sackcloth; I afflicted myself with fasting; I prayed with head bowed on my chest.

Ezra 8:21 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Then I proclaimed a fast there, at the river Ahava, that we might humble ourselves before our God, to seek from him a safe journey for ourselves, our children, and all our goods.

1 Kings 21:27 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

And when Ahab heard those words, he tore his clothes and put sackcloth on his flesh and fasted and lay in sackcloth and went about dejectedly.

1 Kings 19:8 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

And he arose and ate and drank, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mount of God.

2 Samuel 12:21 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Then his servants said to him, “What is this thing that you have done? You fasted and wept for the child while he was alive; but when the child died, you arose and ate food.”

1 Samuel 31:13 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

And they took their bones and buried them under the tamarisk tree in Jabesh and fasted seven days.

Judges 20:26 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Then all the people of Israel, the whole army, went up and came to Bethel and wept. They sat there before the Lord and fasted that day until evening, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before the Lord.

James 4:7 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

James 1:5 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.

Philippians 3:8 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ

Ephesians 6:1-24 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise), “that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.” Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Bondservants, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ, ...

2 Corinthians 6:5 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger;

1 Corinthians 14:1-40 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Pursue love, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy. For one who speaks in a tongue speaks not to men but to God; for no one understands him, but he utters mysteries in the Spirit. On the other hand, the one who prophesies speaks to people for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation. The one who speaks in a tongue builds up himself, but the one who prophesies builds up the church. Now I want you all to speak in tongues, but even more to prophesy. The one who prophesies is greater than the one who speaks in tongues, unless someone interprets, so that the church may be built up. ...

Romans 8:28 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

Romans 6:23 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Acts 27:9 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Since much time had passed, and the voyage was now dangerous because even the Fast was already over, Paul advised them,

Acts 13:1-52 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Now there were in the church at Antioch prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen a lifelong friend of Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” Then after fasting and praying they laid their hands on them and sent them off. So, being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleucia, and from there they sailed to Cyprus. When they arrived at Salamis, they proclaimed the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews. And they had John to assist them. ...

Acts 13:1-3 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Now there were in the church at Antioch prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen a lifelong friend of Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” Then after fasting and praying they laid their hands on them and sent them off.

John 3:16 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

Luke 18:12 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’

Luke 5:34-35 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

And Jesus said to them, “Can you make wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in those days.”

Luke 5:33 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

And they said to him, “The disciples of John fast often and offer prayers, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours eat and drink.”

Mark 16:17 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues;

Mark 9:29 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

And he said to them, “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.”

Mark 2:18 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Now John's disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. And people came and said to him, “Why do John's disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?”

Mark 2:18-20 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Now John's disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. And people came and said to him, “Why do John's disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?” And Jesus said to them, “Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day.

Matthew 26:41 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

Matthew 17:20-22 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

He said to them, “Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.” As they were gathering in Galilee, Jesus said to them, “The Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men,

Matthew 17:20-21 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

He said to them, “Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.”

Matthew 17:1-27 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James, and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light. And behold, there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. And Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good that we are here. If you wish, I will make three tents here, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah.” He was still speaking when, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.” ...

Matthew 10:1 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

And he called to him his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every disease and every affliction.

Matthew 7:7 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.

Matthew 6:7 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

“And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words.

Zechariah 7:5 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

“Say to all the people of the land and the priests, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth month and in the seventh, for these seventy years, was it for me that you fasted?

Jonah 3:5 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

And the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them.

Jonah 3:1-10 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you.” So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, three days' journey in breadth. Jonah began to go into the city, going a day's journey. And he called out, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” And the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them. ...

Joel 2:15 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Blow the trumpet in Zion; consecrate a fast; call a solemn assembly;

Daniel 6:18 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Then the king went to his palace and spent the night fasting; no diversions were brought to him, and sleep fled from him.

Isaiah 58:3-7 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

‘Why have we fasted, and you see it not? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you take no knowledge of it?’ Behold, in the day of your fast you seek your own pleasure, and oppress all your workers. Behold, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to hit with a wicked fist. Fasting like yours this day will not make your voice to be heard on high. Is such the fast that I choose, a day for a person to humble himself? Is it to bow down his head like a reed, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? Will you call this a fast, and a day acceptable to the Lord? “Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?

Nehemiah 9:1 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Now on the twenty-fourth day of this month the people of Israel were assembled with fasting and in sackcloth, and with earth on their heads.

Ezra 10:6 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Then Ezra withdrew from before the house of God and went to the chamber of Jehohanan the son of Eliashib, where he spent the night, neither eating bread nor drinking water, for he was mourning over the faithlessness of the exiles.

1 Kings 21:27-29 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

And when Ahab heard those words, he tore his clothes and put sackcloth on his flesh and fasted and lay in sackcloth and went about dejectedly. And the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying, “Have you seen how Ahab has humbled himself before me? Because he has humbled himself before me, I will not bring the disaster in his days; but in his son's days I will bring the disaster upon his house.”

2 Samuel 12:16 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

David therefore sought God on behalf of the child. And David fasted and went in and lay all night on the ground.

Deuteronomy 9:18 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Then I lay prostrate before the Lord as before, forty days and forty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all the sin that you had committed, in doing what was evil in the sight of the Lord to provoke him to anger.

Leviticus 23:32 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

It shall be to you a Sabbath of solemn rest, and you shall afflict yourselves. On the ninth day of the month beginning at evening, from evening to evening shall you keep your Sabbath.”