English Standard Version
So imagine you're driving down the freeway. You turn your blinker on, then look over and notice that there is a car next to you. Imagine, if you will, that you then proceed to merge into that lane anyway, forcing the other car off the road and into the ditch. Do you feel good for using your blinker?
This is a little like the problem that the prophet Isaiah is describing. The Israelites were fasting to honor God, but then they went out and lived lives that completely ignored the commands God had given them to care for other people. They still wanted credit for fasting, thinking that they were honoring God by doing so.
Instead, God tells them that God would rather see them commit themselves to serving the poor and oppressed. The point of fasting, God is trying to tell them, is that their relationships be restored with God and one another. To ignore the people around you while focusing on God doesn't solve the problem, just as ignoring God while serving the people around you doesn't. They are linked, and while we don't have to be perfect in either, we can't completely ignore half of the equation. Faith in God naturally translates to caring about the things God cares about, and if God has created the world and the people in it, we should be caring for the world and the people in it as part of our effort to honor God.
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