70 Key Bible Verses About Fasting

Fasting is one of the oldest spiritual disciplines in Scripture, practiced by prophets, kings, and even Jesus himself. It is a powerful act of surrender that shifts your focus from the physical to the spiritual, drawing you closer to God in ways that few other practices can.

70 Key Bible Verses About Fasting

Fasting is mentioned over 70 times throughout the Bible, spanning both the Old and New Testaments. From Moses on Mount Sinai to Jesus in the wilderness, the practice of voluntarily going without food or drink to seek God appears in nearly every major era of biblical history.

In the Old Testament, fasting was used for mourning, repentance, seeking divine guidance, and preparing for spiritual battles. In the New Testament, Jesus did not command fasting but assumed his followers would fast, saying “when you fast” rather than “if you fast,” making it clear it was an expected part of the believer’s life.

1. Matthew 6:16 — “And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others.”
2. Matthew 6:17-18 — “But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, 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.”
3. Joel 2:12 — “Yet even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning.”
4. Joel 2:13 — “Rend your hearts and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love.”
5. Daniel 10:3 — “I ate no delicacies, no meat or wine entered my mouth, nor did I anoint myself at all, for the full three weeks.”
6. 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.”
7. Daniel 9:4-5 — “I prayed to the Lord my God and confessed: we have sinned and done wrong. We have been wicked and have rebelled.”
8. Ezra 8:21 — “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.”
9. Ezra 8:23 — “So we fasted and implored our God for this, and he listened to our entreaty.”
10. Isaiah 58:3 — “Why have we fasted, and you have not seen it? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you have not noticed?”
11. Isaiah 58:5 — “Is this the kind of fast I have chosen, only a day for people to humble themselves? Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed?”
12. 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?”
13. Isaiah 58:7 — “Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover him?”
14. 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.'”
15. Acts 13:3 — “So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off.”
16. 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.”
17. Psalm 69:10 — “When I wept and humbled my soul with fasting, it became my reproach.”
18. 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.”
19. Psalm 35:14 — “I went about mourning as though for my friend or brother. I bowed my head in grief as though weeping for my mother.”
20. Psalm 109:24 — “My knees are weak through fasting; my body has become gaunt, with no fat.”
21. Exodus 34:28 — “So he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights. He neither ate bread nor drank water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.”
22. Nehemiah 1:4 — “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.”
23. Nehemiah 9:1 — “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.”
24. 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. And if I perish, I perish.”
25. Esther 4:3 — “There was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting and weeping and lamenting, and many of them lay in sackcloth and ashes.”
26. Luke 4:2 — “For forty days, being tempted by the devil. And he ate nothing during those days. And when they were ended, he was hungry.”
27. Luke 4:4 — “And Jesus answered him, ‘It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone.'”
28. Luke 2:37 — “She did not depart from the temple, worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day.”
29. Luke 18:12 — “I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.”
30. Luke 5:33 — “The disciples of John fast often and offer prayers, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours eat and drink.”
31. Luke 5:35 — “The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in those days.”
32. Matthew 4:2 — “And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.”
33. Matthew 4:4 — “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”
34. Matthew 9:14 — “Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?”
35. Matthew 9:15 — “The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.”
36. 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.”
37. 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.”
38. 2 Samuel 12:17 — “The elders of his house stood beside him, to raise him from the ground, but he would not, nor did he eat food with them.”
39. 1 Kings 21:27 — “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.”
40. 1 Samuel 7:6 — “They gathered at Mizpah and fasted on that day and said, ‘We have sinned against the Lord.’ And Samuel judged the people of Israel at Mizpah.”
41. 1 Samuel 31:13 — “And they took their bones and buried them under the tamarisk tree in Jabesh and fasted seven days.”
42. Jonah 3:5 — “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.”
43. Jonah 3:7 — “By the decree of the king and his nobles: Do not let people or animals, herds or flocks, taste anything; do not let them eat or drink.”
44. Jonah 3:9 — “Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish.”
45. Zechariah 7:5 — “When you fasted and mourned in the fifth month and in the seventh, for these seventy years, was it for me that you fasted?”
46. Zechariah 8:19 — “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.”
47. 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.”
48. Joel 2:15 — “Blow the trumpet in Zion; consecrate a fast; call a solemn assembly.”
49. Judges 20:26 — “Then all the people of Israel, the whole army, went up and wept. They sat there before the Lord and fasted that day until evening, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings.”
50. 2 Chronicles 20:3 — “Then Jehoshaphat was afraid and set his face to seek the Lord, and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah.”
51. Deuteronomy 9:18 — “Then I lay prostrate before the Lord forty days and forty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all the sin that you had committed.”
52. 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.”
53. Jeremiah 36:9 — “In the fifth year of Jehoiakim, all the people in Jerusalem proclaimed a fast before the Lord.”
54. Ezra 10:6 — “Then Ezra withdrew from before the house of God, where he spent the night, neither eating bread nor drinking water, for he was mourning over the faithlessness of the exiles.”
55. 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.”
56. 1 Corinthians 7:5 — “Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again.”
57. Mark 2:18 — “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?'”
58. Mark 2:20 — “The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day.”
59. Mark 9:29 — “And he said to them, ‘This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.'”
60. Acts 9:9 — “And for three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank.”
61. Acts 10:30 — “Four days ago, about this hour, I was praying in my house, and behold, a man stood before me in bright clothing.”
62. Acts 27:33 — “Paul urged them all to take some food, saying, ‘Today is the fourteenth day that you have continued in suspense and without food, having taken nothing.'”
63. 2 Corinthians 11:27 — “In toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure.”
64. 1 Corinthians 9:27 — “But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.”
65. James 4:8 — “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts.”
66. Hebrews 11:6 — “And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.”
67. 2 Chronicles 7:14 — “If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin.”
68. Galatians 5:16 — “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.”
69. Matthew 17:20-21 — “If you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.”
70. John 6:35 — “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

Prayers About Fasting

“Lord, as I enter this time of fasting, I humble myself before You. Strip away every distraction and every appetite that pulls my attention from Your presence. I do not fast to be seen or to earn favor, but because I need You more than I need food. Teach me in this quiet, hungry place what I cannot learn when I am full and comfortable. Speak, Lord, for I am listening.”

“Father, I come to You with fasting and with a heart that wants to turn back to You completely. Where I have wandered, draw me home. Where I have been proud, break me. Where I have been numb, awaken me. Let this fast be not just an empty ritual, but a genuine returning, the way Joel spoke of, with all my heart and not just with outward show. Meet me here, as You have always promised You would.”

“God of Daniel and Esther and Moses, You are the same God I call on today. They fasted and You answered. They humbled themselves and You moved. I bring nothing impressive to this fast, only hunger and faith and a stubborn belief that You still reward those who seek You. Do in my life what only You can do. Let this time of fasting open my eyes, soften my heart, and align my will with Yours. In Jesus’ name, Amen.”