The Bible

Deuteronomy Chapter 16

¹Observe the month of Abib, and keep the Passover to Yahweh your God; for in the month of Abib Yahweh your God brought you from Egypt by night. ²Sacrifice the Passover to Yahweh your God, from the flock and the herd, in the place where Yahweh chooses to cause his name to reside. ³Eat no leavened bread with it. Eat unleavened bread with it for seven days, the bread of affliction (for you came here from the land of Egypt in haste). So that you'll remember all the days of your life the day when you came from the land of Egypt. ⁴Let no yeast be seen with you in all your borders for seven days. Let none of the flesh, which you sacrifice on the first day in the evening, remain all night until the morning. ⁵You may not sacrifice the Passover within any of your gates which Yahweh your God is giving you; ⁶but in the place where Yahweh your God chooses to cause his name to reside, sacrifice the Passover in the evening, at the going down of the sun, at the [same] season that you came from Egypt. ⁷Roast and eat it in the place which Yahweh your God chooses. Return to your tents in the morning. ⁸For six days eat unleavened bread. The seventh day is to be a solemn assembly to Yahweh your God. Do no work [on it].

⁹Count seven weeks for yourselves. Begin to count seven weeks from the time you begin to put the sickle to the standing grain. ¹⁰Keep the feast of weeks to Yahweh your God with a tribute of a freewill offering of your hand, which you are to give according to how Yahweh your God blesses you. ¹¹Rejoice before Yahweh your God: you, your son, your daughter, your male servant, your female servant, the Levite who is within your gates, the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow who are among you, in the place where Yahweh your God chooses to cause his name to reside. ¹²Remember that you were a slave in Egypt. Observe and do these statutes.

¹³You are to keep the feast of temporary-shelters for seven days, after you have gathered in from your threshing floor and from your winepress. ¹⁴Rejoice in your feast, you, your son, your daughter, your male servant, your female servant, the Levite, the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow who are within your gates. ¹⁵Keep a feast to Yahweh your God for seven days in the place which Yahweh chooses, because Yahweh your God will bless you in all your produce and in all the work of your hands, and you are to be altogether joyful. ¹⁶All of your males must appear before Yahweh your God three times a year in the place which he chooses. In the feast of unleavened bread, in the feast of weeks, and in the feast of temporary-shelters. They must not appear before Yahweh empty-handed. ¹⁷Every man is to give as he is able, according to Yahweh your God's blessing which he has given you. ¹⁸Make judges and officers in all your gates, which Yahweh your God is giving you, according to your tribes; and they'll judge the people with righteous judgment. ¹⁹Don't pervert justice. Don't show partiality. Don't take a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and perverts the words of the righteous. ²⁰Pursue what is altogether just, that you may live and inherit the land which Yahweh your God is giving you. ²¹Don't plant for yourselves an Asherah from any kind of tree beside Yahweh your God' altar, which you make for yourselves. ²²Don't set yourself up a [sacred] pillar which Yahweh your God hates.