Leviticus 23
1 Yahweh said to Moses/me,
Then the LORD said to Moses,
2 “Tell the Israeli people about the festivals that I have chosen, the days when you all must gather together [to worship me].”
“Speak to the Israelites and say to them, ‘These are My appointed feasts, the feasts of the LORD that you are to proclaim as sacred assemblies.
3 “You may work for six days [each week], but on the seventh day you must not do any work. You must rest. It is a sacred/holy day when you must gather together [to worship me]. Wherever you live, you must rest on that day.”
For six days work may be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of complete rest, a day of sacred assembly. You must not do any work; wherever you live, it is a Sabbath to the LORD.
4 “There are festivals that I have established for you. Those will also be sacred/holy days when you must gather together [to worship me].
These are the LORD’s appointed feasts, the sacred assemblies you are to proclaim at their appointed times.
5 [The first festival is] (the Passover/when you remember that I spared your ancestors when I killed all the firstborn Egyptian sons). That festival will begin at twilight/dusk/sunset on the chosen day (each spring/in March or April each year), [and end on the following day].
The Passover to the LORD begins at twilight on the fourteenth day of the first month.
6 The next day, the Festival of Eating Bread That Has No Yeast will begin. That festival will continue for seven days. During that time, the bread that you eat must be made without yeast.
On the fifteenth day of the same month begins the Feast of Unleavened Bread to the LORD. For seven days you must eat unleavened bread.
7 On the first day of that festival, you all must stop your regular work and you must gather together [to worship me].
On the first day you are to hold a sacred assembly; you are not to do any regular work.
8 On each of the seven days, you must present to me [several animals to be] an offering/sacrifice to be completely burned [on the altar]. On the seventh day, you all must again stop your regular work and gather to worship me.”
For seven days you are to present an offering made by fire to the LORD. On the seventh day there shall be a sacred assembly; you must not do any regular work.’”
9 Yahweh also told Moses/me
And the LORD said to Moses,
10 to tell the Israeli people [about other festivals]. He said, “When you arrive in the land which I am giving to you, and you harvest your crops [for the first time] there, bring to the priest some of the first grain that you harvest.
“Speak to the Israelites and say, ‘When you enter the land that I am giving you and you reap its harvest, you are to bring to the priest a sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest.
11 On the day after the [next] Sabbath/rest day, the priest will lift it up [high to dedicate it] to me, in order that I will accept it as your [gift].
And he shall wave the sheaf before the LORD so that it may be accepted on your behalf; the priest is to wave it on the day after the Sabbath.
12 That same day, you must sacrifice to me a one-year-old male lamb that has no defects. You must burn it [on the altar].
On the day you wave the sheaf, you shall offer a year-old lamb without blemish as a burnt offering to the LORD,
13 You must also burn an offering of grain. That offering must consist of (three quarts/3.5 liters) of good flour mixed with [olive] oil. The smell [of those things burning] will be very pleasing to me. Along with that, you must also offer one quart/liter of wine, which will be a liquid offering.
along with its grain offering of two-tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with oil—an offering made by fire to the LORD, a pleasing aroma—and its drink offering of a quarter hin of wine.
14 Do not eat any bread or any roasted grain or unroasted grain on that day until after you have brought those offerings to me, your God. You must always obey [LIT] those commands, wherever you live.”
You must not eat any bread or roasted or new grain until the very day you have brought this offering to your God. This is to be a permanent statute for the generations to come, wherever you live.
15 “Seven weeks after the priest offers that grain to me,
From the day after the Sabbath, the day you brought the sheaf of the wave offering, you are to count off seven full weeks.
16 on the next/50th day after he offers it, [each family] must bring to me an offering from the new crop of grain.
You shall count off fifty days until the day after the seventh Sabbath, and then present an offering of new grain to the LORD.
17 From your homes, bring two loaves of bread [to the priest]. He will lift them up [high to dedicate them] as an offering to me. Those loaves must be baked from three quarts/liters of good flour that has yeast mixed with it. That bread will be an offering to me from the first wheat that you harvest [each year].
Bring two loaves of bread from your dwellings as a wave offering, each made from two-tenths of an ephah of fine flour, baked with leaven, as the firstfruits to the LORD.
18 Along with this bread, you must present to me seven one-year-old lambs with no defects, one young bull, and two rams. They must all be completely burned [on the altar]. All those offerings, with the grain offering and the wine offering, will be burned, and the smell [of all those things burning] will be very pleasing to me.
Along with the bread you are to present seven unblemished male lambs a year old, one young bull, and two rams. They will be a burnt offering to the LORD, together with their grain offerings and drink offerings—an offering made by fire, a pleasing aroma to the LORD.
19 Then you must also kill one male goat to be an offering/sacrifice for your sins, and two one-year-old male lambs to be an offering to enable you to maintain fellowship with me.
You shall also prepare one male goat as a sin offering and two male lambs a year old as a peace offering.
20 The priest will lift up these offerings [high to dedicate them] to me. He will also offer the loaves of bread that were baked from the first wheat that you harvest. Those offerings are sacred to me, but they are for the priests [to eat].
The priest is to wave the lambs as a wave offering before the LORD, together with the bread of the firstfruits. The bread and the two lambs shall be holy to the LORD for the priest.
21 On that day, you must stop your regular work and gather to worship me. You must always obey those instructions/commands, and you must obey them wherever you live.
On that same day you are to proclaim a sacred assembly, and you must not do any regular work. This is to be a permanent statute wherever you live for the generations to come.
22 “When you harvest the grain in your fields, do not harvest the grain along the edges of the fields, and do not pick up the grain that the harvesters drop. Leave that grain for the poor people and for the foreigners who are living among you. [Do not forget that it is] I, Yahweh your God, [who am commanding those things]!”
When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap all the way to the edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Leave them for the poor and the foreign resident. I am the LORD your God.’”
23 Yahweh also told Moses/me
The LORD also said to Moses,
24 to give these instructions/commands to the Israeli people: “[Each year] in September, on the day that I have chosen, you all must celebrate it by completely resting. You must not do any work on that day. When [the priests] blow their trumpets loudly, you all must gather together to worship me.
“Speak to the Israelites and say, ‘On the first day of the seventh month you are to have a day of rest, a sacred assembly announced by trumpet blasts.
25 All of you must not do your regular work on that day. Instead, you must present offerings to me that will be burned [on the altar].”
You must not do any regular work, but you are to present an offering made by fire to the LORD.’”
26 Yahweh also said to Moses/me,
Again the LORD said to Moses,
27 “You must celebrate a day [on which you request that I] forgive you for the sins that you have committed. That day will be nine days after the festival [when the priests blow] the trumpets. On that day you must (fast/abstain from eating food). You must gather together to worship me and present offerings to me that will be burned [on the altar].
“The tenth day of this seventh month is the Day of Atonement. You shall hold a sacred assembly and humble yourselves, and present an offering made by fire to the LORD.
28 You must not do any work on that day, because it is the day when the priests will offer sacrifices to me to (atone for/ask me to forgive) your sins.
On this day you are not to do any work, for it is the Day of Atonement, when atonement is made for you before the LORD your God.
29 You must expel from your group anyone who does not (fast/abstain from eating food) on that day.
If anyone does not humble himself on this day, he must be cut off from his people.
30 I will get rid of anyone who does any kind of work on that day.
I will destroy from among his people anyone who does any work on this day.
31 You must not work at all! You must always obey those instructions/commands, and you must obey them wherever you live.
You are not to do any work at all. This is a permanent statute for the generations to come, wherever you live.
32 That day will be a day of complete rest for all of you, and on that day you must (fast/abstain from eating food) [to show that you are sorry for having sinned]. That day of rest and (fasting/abstaining from eating food) will begin on the evening before the day in which you ask me to forgive you for your sins, and it will end on the evening of the following day.”
It will be a Sabbath of complete rest for you, and you shall humble yourselves. From the evening of the ninth day of the month until the following evening you are to keep your Sabbath.”
33 Yahweh also said to Moses/me,
And the LORD said to Moses,
34 “Tell the Israeli people that [each year] they must also celebrate a festival of living in temporary shelters. That festival will begin five days after the day in which they request me to forgive them for their sins. It will last for seven days.
“Speak to the Israelites and say, ‘On the fifteenth day of the seventh month the Feast of Tabernacles to the LORD begins, and it continues for seven days.
35 On the first day of that festival, the people must gather together to worship me, and they must not do any regular work on that day.
On the first day there shall be a sacred assembly. You must not do any regular work.
36 On each of the seven days of the festival, they must present to me an offering [of animals] that will be burned [on the altar]. On the next day, they must gather again to worship me and present to me another animal that will be burned [on the altar]. That also will be a sacred gathering, and they must not work on that day, either.
For seven days you are to present an offering made by fire to the LORD. On the eighth day you are to hold a sacred assembly and present an offering made by fire to the LORD. It is a solemn assembly; you must not do any regular work.
37 “[To summarize], those are the festivals that I have appointed. Celebrate those sacred festivals by gathering together to present to me all the various offerings that will be burned [on the altar]—animals that will be burned completely, and offerings of grain, and offerings to enable the Israeli people to maintain fellowship with me, and offerings of wine. Each offering must be brought on the day that I have indicated.
These are the LORD’s appointed feasts, which you are to proclaim as sacred assemblies for presenting offerings by fire to the LORD—burnt offerings and grain offerings, sacrifices and drink offerings, each on its designated day.
38 (Those festivals must be celebrated/You must celebrate those festivals) in addition to [worshiping on] the (Sabbath days/days of rest). And all those offerings must be given in addition to the offerings that people personally decide to give, and in addition to the offerings that people make to accompany the solemn promises that they have made, or offerings that people make (voluntarily/because they themselves want to).
These offerings are in addition to the offerings for the LORD’s Sabbaths, and in addition to your gifts, to all your vow offerings, and to all the freewill offerings you give to the LORD.
39 “[Returning to my instructions about] the Festival of Living in Temporary Shelters, you must celebrate this festival after you have harvested all the crops. On the first day and on the last day of that festival, you must rest completely.
On the fifteenth day of the seventh month, after you have gathered the produce of the land, you are to celebrate a feast to the LORD for seven days. There shall be complete rest on the first day and also on the eighth day.
40 But on the first day, you are permitted to pick fruit from trees. Cut palm fronds/branches and other leafy branches from trees or from bushes that grow by the streams, [and make shelters/huts to live in for that week]. Then rejoice in my presence for those seven days.
On the first day you are to gather the fruit of majestic trees, the branches of palm trees, and the boughs of leafy trees and of willows of the brook. And you are to rejoice before the LORD your God for seven days.
41 You must celebrate this festival for seven days every year. You must never stop obeying my commands/instructions for that festival. You must celebrate it in September.
You are to celebrate this as a feast to the LORD for seven days each year. This is a permanent statute for the generations to come; you are to celebrate it in the seventh month.
42 During the seven days of that festival, all of you people who have been Israelis your entire lives must live in shelters/huts.
You are to dwell in booths for seven days. All the native-born of Israel must dwell in booths,
43 That will remind your descendants that their ancestors lived in shelters [for many years] after I rescued them from Egypt. [Do not forget that] I, Yahweh your God, [am the one who is commanding this].”
so that your descendants may know that I made the Israelites dwell in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt. I am the LORD your God.’”
44 So Moses/I gave to the Israeli people all those instructions concerning the festivals that Yahweh [wanted them to celebrate] each year.
So Moses announced to the Israelites the appointed feasts of the LORD.
