52+ Amazing Verses About Fasting in Scripture
Are you curious about what the Bible has to say about fasting? There are many examples of fasting in scripture throughout the Old and New Testaments.
The Bible talks a fair amount about fasting and food, and we have over 52 verses listed in this post that are key to meditate on as you study Christian fasting.
Fasting is a spiritual discipline that helps you separate from the world as you draw closer to God and strengthen your spirit. It can help you deepen your relationship with the Lord, shift your perspective, give you clarity, and help align your spirit, soul, and body.
These scriptures will help you explore why people fast, what is involved in fasting, and how it can be used as a tool for spiritual growth. If you are interested in learning more about fasting, or if you are looking for biblical encouragement on this topic, then please read on!
52 Fasting Scriptures: What the Bible Says About Fasting
We encourage you to consult your Bible and read the verses in full context. We have added an extra verse to some of these entries for more context (that’s where the 52+ comes in).
Are all of these Bible verses really about fasting?
You may wonder about this question as you read some of the following scriptures. While every verse doesn’t contain the word “fast” or “fasting,” we have chosen to include some scriptures about abstaining from food that may pique are curiosity.
As always, ask for the Lord to speak to you as you read His Word and provide clarity and insight.
You will find extraordinary stories and examples of fasting in scripture to inspire your own fasting journey!
Unless otherwise noted, all quotations below are from the New International Version (NIV).
Old Testament Fasting Scriptures
Exodus 34:28 - Moses was there with the Lord for forty days and forty nights without eating bread or drinking water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant—the Ten Commandments.
Leviticus 23:32 (CEV) - This is a time of complete rest just like the Sabbath, and everyone must go without eating from the evening of the ninth to the evening of the tenth.
Numbers 6:3-4 - they must abstain from wine and other fermented drink and must not drink vinegar made from wine or other fermented drink. They must not drink grape juice or eat grapes or raisins. As long as they remain under their Nazirite vow, they must not eat anything that comes from the grapevine, not even the seeds or skins.
Judges 20:26 - Then all the Israelites, the whole army, went up to Bethel, and there they sat weeping before the Lord. They fasted that day until evening and presented burnt offerings and fellowship offerings to the Lord.
1 Samuel 1:7-8 - This continued year after year. Whenever she went up to the house of the Lord, her rival provoked her bitterly so that she wept and would not eat. Her husband Elkanah would say to her, “Hannah, why are you weeping? Why don’t you eat? Why are you downhearted? Don’t I mean more to you than ten sons?”
1 Samuel 7:6 - When they had assembled at Mizpah, they drew water and poured it out before the Lord. On that day they fasted and there they confessed, “We have sinned against the Lord.” Now Samuel was serving as leader of Israel at Mizpah.
1 Samuel 31:13 - Then they took their bones and buried them under a tamarisk tree at Jabesh, and they fasted seven days.
2 Samuel 1:12 - They mourned and wept and fasted till evening for Saul and his son Jonathan, and for the army of the Lord and for the nation of Israel, because they had fallen by the sword.
2 Samuel 3:35 - Then they all came and urged David to eat something while it was still day; but David took an oath, saying, “May God deal with me, be it ever so severely, if I taste bread or anything else before the sun sets!”
2 Samuel 12:16 - David pleaded with God for the child. He fasted and spent the nights lying in sackcloth on the ground.
2 Samuel 12:22-23 - He answered, “While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept. I thought, ‘Who knows? The Lord may be gracious to me and let the child live.’ But now that he is dead, why should I go on fasting? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me.”
1 Kings 17:4-6 - [Elijah] So he did what the Lord had told him. He went to the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan, and stayed there. The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook.
1 Kings 19:8 - [Elijah] So he got up and ate and drank. Strengthened by that food, he traveled forty days and forty nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God.
2 Chronicles 20:3-4 - Alarmed, Jehoshaphat resolved to inquire of the Lord, and he proclaimed a fast for all Judah. The people of Judah came together to seek help from the Lord; indeed, they came from every town in Judah to seek him.
Ezra 8:21-23 - There, by the Ahava Canal, I proclaimed a fast, so that we might humble ourselves before our God and ask him for a safe journey for us and our children, with all our possessions. I was ashamed to ask the king for soldiers and horsemen to protect us from enemies on the road, because we had told the king, “The gracious hand of our God is on everyone who looks to him, but his great anger is against all who forsake him.” So we fasted and petitioned our God about this, and he answered our prayer.
Ezra 10:6 - Then Ezra withdrew from before the house of God and went to the room of Jehohanan son of Eliashib. While he was there, he ate no food and drank no water, because he continued to mourn over the unfaithfulness of the exiles.
Nehemiah 1:4 - When I heard these things, I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven.
Nehemiah 9:1 - On the twenty-fourth day of the same month, the Israelites gathered together, fasting and wearing sackcloth and putting dust on their heads.
Esther 4:16 - “Go, gather together all the Jews who are in Susa, and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my attendants will fast as you do. When this is done, I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish.”
Esther 9:31 - to establish these days of Purim at their designated times, as Mordecai the Jew and Queen Esther had decreed for them, and as they had established for themselves and their descendants in regard to their times of fasting and lamentation.
Psalms 35:13 - Yet when they were ill, I put on sackcloth and humbled myself with fasting. When my prayers returned to me unanswered
Psalms 69:10-11 - When I weep and fast, I must endure scorn; when I put on sackcloth, people make sport of me.
Psalms 109:24 - My knees give way from fasting; my body is thin and gaunt.
Isaiah 58:3 - ‘Why have we fasted,’ they say, ‘and you have not seen it? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you have not noticed?’ “Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please and exploit all your workers.
Isaiah 58:6 - “Is not this the kind of fasting 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? (See Isaiah 58:1-14 for more)
Jeremiah 14:12 - Although they fast, I will not listen to their cry; though they offer burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Instead, I will destroy them with the sword, famine and plague.”
Jeremiah 36:6 - So you go to the house of the Lord on a day of fasting and read to the people from the scroll the words of the Lord that you wrote as I dictated. Read them to all the people of Judah who come in from their towns.
Daniel 1:12 - Please test your servants for ten days: Give us nothing but vegetables to eat and water to drink.
Daniel 9:3 - So I turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and petition, in fasting, and in sackcloth and ashes.
Daniel 10:2-3 - At that time I, Daniel, mourned for three weeks. I ate no choice food; no meat or wine touched my lips; and I used no lotions at all until the three weeks were over.
Joel 1:14 - Declare a holy fast; call a sacred assembly. Summon the elders and all who live in the land to the house of the LORD your God, and cry out to the LORD.
Joel 2:12 - “Even now,” declares the LORD, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.”
Jonah 3:5 - Then the people of Nineveh believed in God; and they called a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least of them.
Jonah 3:7-8 - He [the king] issued a proclamation and it said, “In Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles: Do not let man, beast, herd, or flock taste a thing. Do not let them eat or drink water. But both man and beast must be covered with sackcloth; and let men call on God earnestly that each may turn from his wicked way and from the violence which is in his hands.
Zechariah 7:5 - Say to all the people of the land and to the priests, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months these seventy years, was it actually for Me that you fasted?
Zechariah 8:19 - This is what the LORD Almighty says: “The fasts of the fourth, fifth, seventh and tenth months will become joyful and glad occasions and happy festivals for Judah. Therefore love truth and peace.”
New Testament Fasting Scriptures
Matthew 4:2 - Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, He was hungry.
Matthew 6:16 - “Whenever you fast, do not put on a gloomy face as the hypocrites do, for they neglect their appearance so that they will be noticed by men when they are fasting. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full.
Matthew 6:17-18 - “But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face so that your fasting will not be noticed by men, but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you."
Matthew 9:14-15 - Then the disciples of John came to Him, asking, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but Your disciples do not fast?” And Jesus said to them, “The attendants of the bridegroom cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them, can they? But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.
Matthew 17:21 (NASB 1995) - But this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.
Mark 1:12-13 - At once the Spirit sent him out into the wilderness, and he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him.
Mark 2:18-19 - John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting; and they 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, “While the bridegroom is with them, the attendants of the bridegroom cannot fast, can they? So long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast.
Mark 9:29 (KJV) - And he said unto them, This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting.
Luke 2:36-37 - There was also a prophetess named Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher, who was well along in years. She had been married for seven years, and then was a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the temple, but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying.
Luke 4:1-2 - Then Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, where for forty days He was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and when they had ended, He was hungry.
Luke 5:33-35 - And they said to Him, “The disciples of John often fast and offer prayers, the disciples of the Pharisees also do the same, but Yours eat and drink.” And Jesus said to them, “You cannot make the attendants of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them, can you? But the days will come; and when the bridegroom is taken away from them, then they will fast in those days.”
Luke 18:12-13 - I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’ “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ (see Luke 18:9-14)
Acts 9:9 - For three days he was blind, and did not eat or drink anything.
Acts 13:2-3 - While they were ministering to 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, when they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them, they sent them away.
Acts 14:23 - Paul and Barnabas appointed elders for them in each church and, with prayer and fasting, committed them to the Lord, in whom they had put their trust.
Acts 27:9 (ESV) - Since much time had passed, and the voyage was now dangerous because even the Fast was already over, Paul advised them
Fasting is an important, although often neglected, spiritual discipline and the Bible has a lot to say about it. We hope this post has been helpful for you!
Learn more about the Daniel Fast.
You may also enjoy:
