Happy Thanksgiving

‘Why have we feasted,’ they say,
  ‘and you have not seen it?

?  Why have we humbled ourselves,
?  and you have not noticed?’
?  Yet on the day of your feasting, you do as you please
  and exploit all your workers.

Your feasting ends in quarreling and strife,
?  and in striking each other with wicked fists.
?  You cannot feast as you do today
?  and expect your voice to be heard on high.

Is this the kind of feast I have chosen,
?  only a day for a man to humble himself?
?  Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed
?  and for lying on sackcloth and ashes?
?  Is that what you call a feast,
?  a day acceptable to the LORD ?

Is not this the kind of feasting I have chosen:
?  to loose the chains of injustice
?  and untie the cords of the yoke,
?  to set the oppressed free
?  and break every yoke?

Is it not to share your food with the hungry
?  and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter —
?  when you see the naked, to clothe him,
?  and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?

Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
?  and your healing will quickly appear;
?  then your righteousness will go before you,
?  and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard.

Then you will call, and the LORD will answer;
?  you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.
?  “If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
?  with the pointing finger and malicious talk,

and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
?  and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
?  then your light will rise in the darkness,
?  and your night will become like the noonday.

(adapted for Thanksgiving Day — “feast” for “fast” — from Isaiah 58)