Fasting verses in the Bible, grouped by why you fast

1. Name your reason before you choose a verse

Fasting in Scripture nearly always comes with a stated reason: Nehemiah fasts over news of Jerusalem's broken wall, Esther before risking her life. Write your own reason in one sentence in a notebook before day one. It decides which passages you read and what you pray about when hunger hits at lunchtime.

Your reason	Verses to read	What to pray about
Repentance, a fresh start	Joel 2:12-13, Jonah 3:5-10, Daniel 9:3-5	Specific things to change in you and in your community
Guidance for a decision	Ezra 8:21-23, Acts 13:2-3, Acts 14:23	One clear question, such as a move or a job offer
Grief, illness or bad news	2 Samuel 12:16-23, Nehemiah 1:4, Psalm 35:13	The person or situation, by name
Courage before something hard	Esther 4:16, Luke 4:1-2, Matthew 4:1-4	Clarity and nerve for the task in front of you
Checking your motives	Matthew 6:16-18, Isaiah 58:3-7	Privacy, and one concrete act of help for someone in need

These groups overlap, and the Bible gives no formal list. For how fasts differ in length and form, from Esther's total fast to Daniel's partial one, see our overview of the types of fasting in the Bible.

2. Start with Jesus' teaching in Matthew 6:16-18

Whatever your reason, read Matthew 6:16-18 on the first morning. It sits in the Sermon on the Mount, after Jesus' teaching on giving and prayer, and all three follow one pattern: do it for God, without an audience. He opens with "Moreover when ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance" (Matthew 6:16). The word "when" assumes his listeners already fast.

Then comes "anoint thine head, and wash thy face" (Matthew 6:17), so nobody can tell. Today that means keeping your routine, skipping the social media announcement and turning down a lunch invitation without a speech. Fasting with your church is fine, since corporate fasts appear all through Scripture; Matthew 6 is about the private motive. In Matthew 9:15 Jesus adds that once the bridegroom is taken away, "then shall they fast".

3. Read the fasting verses in the Bible on repentance

The best-known call to fast is Joel 2:12: "turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting". Joel speaks after a locust plague, and the next verse adds "rend your heart, and not your garments" (Joel 2:13). Torn clothes were the public sign of grief, and Joel asks for the inner change behind them.

Jonah 3 shows a whole city doing it. Told "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown" (Jonah 3:4), the people "proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them" (Jonah 3:5). God saw "that they turned from their evil way" (Jonah 3:10). The fast came with changed conduct.

Daniel 9:3 is the personal version. After reading Jeremiah's prophecy of seventy years of desolation for Jerusalem, Daniel seeks God "by prayer and supplications, with fasting", and his prayer says "We have sinned" (Daniel 9:5), counting himself among his people. Read Daniel 9:4-19 slowly and write your own version.

4. Read these verses when you need guidance or courage

Ezra 8:21-23 is the clearest guidance fast. Ezra is about to lead returning exiles, children included, from Babylon to Jerusalem. Having told the king that God protects those who seek him, he was "ashamed to require of the king a band of soldiers" (Ezra 8:22), so he proclaims a fast at the river of Ahava "to seek of him a right way for us, and for our little ones" (Ezra 8:21). Verse 23 ends: "he was intreated of us."

In Acts, the church at Antioch fasted and prayed before sending Barnabas and Saul on their first mission (Acts 13:2-3), and the two later appointed elders and "prayed with fasting" (Acts 14:23). Read them before a job change or a new commitment.

For courage, read Esther 4:16. Approaching the Persian king uninvited could mean death, so Esther asks her people to "neither eat nor drink three days, night or day" before she goes in: "if I perish, I perish." Jesus' forty days in the wilderness (Luke 4:1-2; Matthew 4:2) also come right before his public ministry, and Luke notes plainly that "he afterward hungered".

5. Turn to these passages in grief or illness

Many fasts in Scripture are simply grief. When David's infant son fell ill, "David fasted, and went in, and lay all night upon the earth" (2 Samuel 12:16). When the child died on the seventh day, David got up and ate, explaining that he had fasted and wept while there was still hope (2 Samuel 12:22). These verses allow you to fast with an honest request, and to stop when the situation changes.

Nehemiah 1:4 is a fast over bad news from far away. At the Persian court, Nehemiah hears that Jerusalem's wall is broken down, and he "sat down and wept, and mourned certain days, and fasted". Months later he asks the king for leave to rebuild it (Nehemiah 2:1-5), so his fast led to a plan. Daniel 10:2-3, the three weeks of mourning behind today's 21-day fasts, belongs here too.

In Psalm 35:13, David fasts for people who were sick and later turned against him: "I humbled my soul with fasting". It fits a fast for a friend in hospital.

6. Measure your fast against Isaiah 58

Isaiah 58 is the chapter to come back to halfway through. The people complain that they have fasted and God has not noticed (Isaiah 58:3). The answer is blunt: on the day of their fast they chase their own business and drive their workers hard, and they fast "for strife and debate" (Isaiah 58:4).

Then God describes the fast he has chosen: "to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens" (Isaiah 58:6), and "to deal thy bread to the hungry" (Isaiah 58:7). Hunger makes most of us short-tempered, and this chapter asks for the opposite. Two ways to apply it: give the food you would have eaten at skipped meals to a food bank, and settle one conflict you have been avoiding before the fast ends.

7. Choose a form of fasting your body can handle

Scripture describes total fasts without water, like Esther's, and partial ones, like Daniel asking for "pulse to eat, and water to drink" (Daniel 1:12). Going without water is the riskiest form, so drink through every fast, roughly a glass every two hours while you are awake. For black coffee, check your church's rules; our page on whether coffee breaks a fast covers the metabolic side.

A 2018 review describes a metabolic switch, typically beyond 12 hours after your last meal, when liver glycogen runs low and the body turns to fat and ketones for fuel. How that feels varies between people. A partial fast is gentler: in a study of 43 adults on a 21-day Daniel fast, people reported about 99% adherence, and LDL cholesterol and blood pressure fell, although HDL fell too and body measurements did not change significantly.

Choose a partial fast, or a fast from something like your phone after 8 p.m., if any of these apply:

• Diabetes treated with insulin or sulfonylureas. Skipped meals can push blood sugar too low. A review concluded that people with diabetes can fast safely under their doctor's supervision, with regular glucose checks.
• Pregnancy or breastfeeding, when your needs are higher.
• A history of an eating disorder, since food rules can bring old patterns back.
• Being under 18. Teenagers can join a church fast by giving up one meal or a screen habit.

Stop and eat if you feel dizzy or close to fainting, or get shaky and sweaty, and call your doctor if it does not settle. Ending a fast early for your health is no failure of faith.

8. Follow a 7-day reading plan

Put the reading where the meal used to be: at 12:30 if you skip lunch, before work if you skip breakfast. Hunger peaks around your usual mealtimes, and the passage fills that time.

Day	Read	Prayer focus
Day 1	Matthew 6:1-18	Your reason for fasting, in one sentence
Day 2	Joel 2:12-17 and Jonah 3	What needs to change in you
Day 3	Daniel 9:3-19	Your family and your church
Day 4	Ezra 8:21-23 and Acts 13:1-3	The decision in front of you
Day 5	Esther 4 and Nehemiah 1	Courage, and people going through hardship
Days 6 and 7	Isaiah 58 and Luke 4:1-13	One act of help, then how you will end the fast

For a 21-day fast, run the week three times: in week two, read the full chapter around each passage, and in week three, read the short books whole (Joel has three chapters, Jonah four). Write one line a day in your notebook. If you also keep set fasting hours, FastTrack can start and stop the fast on schedule and track your water, which keeps the clock out of your prayer time.

In short

Pick your reason, then read the matching verses: Joel, Jonah and Daniel 9 for repentance, Ezra and Acts for guidance, 2 Samuel 12 and Nehemiah 1 for grief, Esther and Luke 4 for courage. Start with Matthew 6:16-18, return to Isaiah 58 halfway, keep drinking water, and stop if your body tells you to.