Leviticus
Chapter 23
1
The LORD said to Moses,
2
"Speak to the Israelites and tell them: The following are the festivals of the LORD, my feast days, which you shall celebrate with a sacred assembly.
3
"For six days work may be done; but the seventh day is the sabbath rest, a day for sacred assembly, on which you shall do no work. The sabbath shall belong to the LORD wherever you dwell.
4
"These, then, are the festivals of the LORD which you shall celebrate at their proper time with a sacred assembly.
5
The Passover of the LORD falls on the fourteenth day of the first month, at the evening twilight.
6
The fifteenth day of this month is the LORD'S feast of Unleavened Bread. For seven days you shall eat unleavened bread.
7
On the first of these days you shall hold a sacred assembly and do no sort of work.
8
On each of the seven days you shall offer an oblation to the LORD. Then on the seventh day you shall again hold a sacred assembly and do no sort of work."
9
The LORD said to Moses,
10
"Speak to the Israelites and tell them: When you come into the land which I am giving you, and reap your harvest, you shall bring a sheaf of the first fruits of your harvest to the priest,
11
1 who shall wave the sheaf before the LORD that it may be acceptable for you. On the day after the sabbath the priest shall do this.
12
On this day, when your sheaf is waved, you shall offer to the LORD for a holocaust an unblemished yearling lamb.
13
Its cereal offering shall be two tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with oil, as a sweet-smelling oblation to the LORD; and its libation shall be a fourth of a hin of wine.
14
2 Until this day, when you bring your God this offering, you shall not eat any bread or roasted grain or fresh kernels. This shall be a perpetual statute for you and your descendants wherever you dwell.
15
"Beginning with the day after the sabbath, the day on which you bring the wave-offering sheaf, you shall count seven full weeks,
16
3 and then on the day after the seventh week, the fiftieth day, you shall present the new cereal offering to the LORD.
17
For the wave offering of your first fruits to the LORD, you shall bring with you from wherever you live two loaves of bread made of two tenths of an ephah of fine flour and baked with leaven.
18
Besides the bread, you shall offer to the LORD a holocaust of seven unblemished yearling lambs, one young bull, and two rams, along with their cereal offering and libations, as a sweet-smelling oblation to the LORD.
19
One male goat shall be sacrificed as a sin offering, and two yearling lambs as a peace offering.
20
The priest shall wave the bread of the first fruits and the two lambs as a wave offer ing before the LORD; these shall be sacred to the LORD and belong to the priest.
21
On this same day you shall by proclamation have a sacred assembly, and no sort of work may be done. This shall be a perpetual statute for you and your descendants wherever you dwell.
22
"When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not be so thorough that you reap the field to its very edge, nor shall you glean the stray ears of your grain. These things you shall leave for the poor and the alien. I, the LORD, am your God."
23
The LORD said to Moses,
24
"Tell the Israelites: On the first day of the seventh month you shall keep a sabbath rest, with a sacred assembly and with the trumpet blasts as a reminder;
25
you shall then do no sort of work, and you shall offer an oblation to the LORD."
26
The LORD said to Moses,
27
"The tenth of this seventh month is the Day of Atonement, when you shall hold a sacred assembly and mortify yourselves and offer an oblation to the LORD.
28
On this day you shall not do any work, because it is the Day of Atonement, when atonement is made for you before the LORD, your God.
29
Anyone who does not mortify himself on this day shall be cut off from his people,
30
and if anyone does any work on this day, I will remove him from the midst of his people.
31
This is a perpetual statute for you and your descendants wherever you dwell: you shall do no work,
32
but shall keep a sabbath of complete rest and mortify yourselves. Beginning on the evening of the ninth of the month, you shall keep this sabbath of yours from evening to evening."
33
The LORD said to Moses,
34
4 "Tell the Israelites: The fifteenth day of this seventh month is the LORD'S feast of Booths, which shall continue for seven days.
35
On the first day there shall be a sacred assembly, and you shall do no sort of work.
36
For seven days you shall offer an oblation to the LORD, and on the eighth day you shall again hold a sacred assembly and offer an oblation to the LORD. On that solemn closing you shall do no sort of work.
37
"These, therefore, are the festivals of the LORD on which you shall proclaim a sacred assembly, and offer as an oblation to the LORD holocausts and cereal offerings, sacrifices and libations, as prescribed for each day,
38
in addition to those of the LORD'S sabbaths, your donations, your various votive offerings and the free-will offerings that you present to the LORD.
39
"On the fifteenth day, then, of the seventh month, when you have gathered in the produce of the land, you shall celebrate a pilgrim feast of the LORD for a whole week. The first and the eighth day shall be days of complete rest.
40
5 On the first day you shall gather foliage from majestic trees, branches of palms and boughs of myrtles and of valley poplars, and then for a week you shall make merry before the LORD, your God.
41
By perpetual statute for you and your descendants you shall keep this pilgrim feast of the LORD for one whole week in the seventh month of the year.
42
During this week every native Israelite among you shall dwell in booths,
43
that your descendants may realize that, when I led the Israelites out of the land of Egypt, I made them dwell in booths. I, the LORD, am your God."
44
Thus did Moses announce to the Israelites the festivals of the LORD.
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Footnotes

1 [11] The sabbath: according to the Jewish tradition this was the feast day itself, the fifteenth of Nisan, which was a special day of rest. Cf Lev 23:7. However, some understand here the Saturday of the Passover week, or even the Saturday following it; cf John 19:31.

2 [14] Any bread: made from the new grain. The harvest had first to be sanctified for man's use by this offering to God.

3 [16] The fiftieth: from the Greek word for this we have the name "Pentecost." Cf 2 Macc 12:31; Acts 2:1. It was also called "the feast of the Seven Weeks," or simply "the feast of Weeks" (Numbers 28:26; Deut 16:10; Tobit 2:1). The new cereal offering: of flour made from the new grain. Pentecost was the thanksgiving feast at the end of the grain harvest, which began after Passover. Later tradition made it a commemoration of the giving of the law at Sinai.

4 [34] Feasts of Booths: the joyful observance of the vintage and fruit harvest. Cf Deut 16:13. During the seven days of the feast the Israelites camped in booths of branches erected on the roofs of their houses or in the streets in commemoration of their wanderings in the desert, where they dwelt in booths.

5 [40] Foliage: literally, "fruit," but here probably used in the general sense of "produce, growth." These branches were used for constructing the "booths" or huts in which the people lived during the feast. Cf Nehemiah 8:15. However, from about the time of Christ on, the Jews have understood this of "fruit" in the strict sense; hence, branches of lemons and oranges were carried with the other branches in joyous procession.


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