L: 56 Biblical examples:

L: 56 Biblical examples:

If you want a challenge, work through the list of Bible passages below and see if they all fit into one or more of these categories!

a)To develop our closeness to God/sense of His presence.
b)To hear God.
c)To make prayer more effective because we hear God with more certainty, which develops faith.
d)Mourning, to understand and humbly submit to God's will in the confusion of disaster or bereavement.
e)Trying to understand difficult circumstances, even with a sense of complaint – God can handle this, as long as you are genuinely humbly listening for His word or comfort.
f)Worship.
g)Commissioning people in a God ordained role.
h)Confession, or to identify sin, even as a group/Church when not everyone is involved.


1.Judges 20:26
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.


2.1 Samuel 7:6
So they gathered at Mizpah and drew water and poured it out before the LORD and fasted on that day and said there, "We have sinned against the LORD." And Samuel judged the people of Israel at Mizpah.


3.1 Samuel 31:13
And they took their bones and buried them under the tamarisk tree in Jabesh and fasted seven days.


4.2 Samuel 1:12
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.


5.2 Samuel 12:16
David therefore sought God on behalf of the child. And David fasted and went in and lay all night on the ground.


6.2 Samuel 12:21
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."


7.2 Samuel 12:22
He said, "While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept, for I said, 'Who knows whether the LORD will be gracious to me, that the child may live?'


8.2 Samuel 12:23
But now he is dead. Why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he will not return to me."


9.1 Kings 21:27
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.


10.1 Chronicles 10:12
all the valiant men arose and took away the body of Saul and the bodies of his sons, and brought them to Jabesh. And they buried their bones under the oak in Jabesh and fasted seven days.


11.2 Chronicles 20:3
Then Jehoshaphat was afraid and set his face to seek the LORD, and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah.


12.Ezra 8:21
[ Fasting and Prayer for Protection ] 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.


13.Ezra 8:23
So we fasted and implored our God for this, and he listened to our entreaty.


14.Ezra 9:5
And at the evening sacrifice I rose from my fasting, with my garment and my cloak torn, and fell upon my knees and spread out my hands to the LORD my God,


15.Nehemiah 1:4
[ Nehemiah’s Prayer ] 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.


16.Nehemiah 9:1
[ The People of Israel Confess Their Sin ] 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.


17.Esther 4:3
And in every province, wherever the king’s command and his decree reached, there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting and weeping and lamenting, and many of them lay in sackcloth and ashes.


18.Esther 4:16
"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."


19.Esther 9:31
that these days of Purim should be observed at their appointed seasons, as Mordecai the Jew and Queen Esther obligated them, and as they had obligated themselves and their offspring, with regard to their fasts and their lamenting.


20.Psalm 35:13
But I, when they were sick—I wore sackcloth;I afflicted myself with fasting;I prayed with head bowed on my chest.


21.Psalm 69:10
When I wept and humbled my soul with fasting,it became my reproach.


22.Psalm 109:24
My knees are weak through fasting;my body has become gaunt, with no fat.


23.Isaiah 58:1
[ True and False Fasting ] "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.


24.Isaiah 58:3
'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.


25.Isaiah 58:4
Behold, you fast only to quarrel and to fightand to hit with a wicked fist.Fasting like yours this day will not make your voice to be heard on high.


26.Isaiah 58:5
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?


27.Isaiah 58:6
"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?


28.Jeremiah 14:12
Though they fast, I will not hear their cry, and though they offer burnt offering and grain offering, I will not accept them. But I will consume them by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence."


29.Jeremiah 36:6
so you are to go, and on a day of fasting in the hearing of all the people in the LORD’s house you shall read the words of the LORD from the scroll that you have written at my dictation. You shall read them also in the hearing of all the men of Judah who come out of their cities.


30.Jeremiah 36:9
In the fifth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, in the ninth month, all the people in Jerusalem and all the people who came from the cities of Judah to Jerusalem proclaimed a fast before the LORD.


31.Daniel 6:18
Then the king went to his palace and spent the night fasting; no diversions were brought to him, and sleep fled from him.


32.Daniel 9:3
Then I turned my face to the Lord God, seeking him by prayer and pleas for mercy with fasting and sackcloth and ashes.


33.Joel 1:14
Consecrate a fast; call a solemn assembly. Gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land to the house of the LORD your God,and cry out to the LORD.


34.Joel 2:12
[ Return to the LORD ] "Yet even now," declares the LORD, "return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;


35.Joel 2:15
Blow the trumpet in Zion; consecrate a fast;call a solemn assembly;


36.Jonah 3:5
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.


37.Zechariah 7:5
"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?


38.Zechariah 8:19
"Thus says the LORD of hosts: The fast of the fourth month and the fast of the fifth and the fast of the seventh and the fast of the tenth shall be to the house of Judah seasons of joy and gladness and cheerful feasts. Therefore love truth and peace.


39.Matthew 4:2
And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.


40.Matthew 6:16
[ Fasting ] "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.


41.Matthew 6:17
But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face,


42.Matthew 6:18
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.


43.Matthew 9:14
[ A Question About Fasting ] Then the disciples of John came to him, saying, "Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?"


44.Matthew 9:15
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.


45.Matthew 18:6
but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.


46.Mark 2:18
[ A Question About Fasting ] 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?"


47.Mark 2:19
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.


48.Mark 2:20
The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day.


49.Luke 2:37
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.


50.Luke 5:33
[ A Question About Fasting ] 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."


51.Luke 5:34
And Jesus said to them, "Can you make wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them?


52.Luke 5:35
The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in those days."


53.Luke 18:12
I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.'


54.Acts 13:2
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."


55.Acts 13:3
Then after fasting and praying they laid their hands on them and sent them off.


56.Acts 14:23
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.