Deuteronomy 16

¹ ‘Observe the month of Abib and celebrate the Passover for Yahweh your God, because it was in the month of Abib that Yahweh your God brought you out of Egypt by night.

² You must sacrifice a Passover from your flock or herd for Yahweh your God in the place where Yahweh chooses to give his name a home.

³ You must not eat leavened bread with this; for seven days you must eat it with unleavened bread, the bread of emergency, for it was in great haste that you came out of the land of Egypt; so you will remember, all the days of your life, the day you came out of the land of Egypt.

⁴ For seven days no leaven must be found in any house throughout your territory, nor must any of the meat that you sacrifice in the evening of the first day be kept overnight until morning.

⁵ You may not sacrifice the Passover in any of the towns that Yahweh your God gives you;

⁶ but only in the place where Yahweh your God chooses to give his name a home, there you must sacrifice the Passover, in the evening at sunset, at the hour at which you came out of Egypt.

⁷ You must cook it and eat it in the place Yahweh your God chooses, and in the morning you are to return and go to your tents.

⁸ For six days you shall eat unleavened bread; on the seventh day there shall be an assembly for Yahweh your God; and you must do no work.

⁹ ‘You are to count seven weeks, counting these seven weeks from the time you begin to put your sickle into the standing corn.

¹⁰ You must then celebrate the feast of weeks for Yahweh your God with the gift of a voluntary offering from your hand in proportion to the way that Yahweh your God has blessed you.

¹¹ You must rejoice in the presence of Yahweh your God in the place where Yahweh your God chooses to give his name a home, you and your son and daughter, your serving men and women, the Levite who lives in your towns, the stranger, the orphan and the widow who live among you.

¹² Remember that you were a slave in Egypt, and carefully observe these laws.

¹³ ‘You must celebrate the feast of Tabernacles for seven days, at the time when you gather in the produce of your threshing-floor and winepress.

¹⁴ You must rejoice at your feast, you and your son and daughter, your serving men and women, the Levite, the stranger, the orphan and the widow who live in your towns.

¹⁵ For seven days you are to celebrate the feast for Yahweh your God in the place Yahweh chooses, for Yahweh your God will bless you in all your harvest and all your handiwork, and you will be filled with joy.

¹⁶ ‘Three times a year all your menfolk are to appear before Yahweh your God in the place he chooses: at the feast of Unleavened Bread, at the feast of Weeks, at the feast of Tabernacles. No one must appear before Yahweh empty-handed,

¹⁷ but every man must give what he can, in proportion to the blessing that Yahweh your God gives you.

¹⁸ ‘You are to appoint judges and scribes in each of the towns that Yahweh is giving you, for all your tribes; these must administer an impartial judgement to the people.

¹⁹ You must not pervert the law; you must be impartial, you must take no bribes, for a bribe blinds wise men’s eyes and jeopardises the cause of the just.

²⁰ Strict justice must be your ideal, so that you may live in rightful possession of the land that Yahweh your God is giving you.

²¹ ‘You must not plant a sacred pole of any wood whatsoever beside the altar that you put up for Yahweh your God;

²² nor must you set up a standing-stone, a thing Yahweh your God would abhor.