Deuteronomy - Chapter 16 - Bible

Deuteronomy Chapters

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 affliction -- since you left Egypt in great haste; this is so that, as long as you live, you will remember the day you came out 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 the next day.

⁵ You must sacrifice the Passover not in any of the towns given you by Yahweh your God,

⁶ but 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 when you came out of Egypt.

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

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

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

¹⁰ You will then celebrate the feast of Weeks for Yahweh your God with the gift of a voluntary offering proportionate to the degree in which 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, your son and your daughter, your serving men and women, the Levite living in your community, the foreigner, the orphan and the widow living among you.

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

¹³ 'You must celebrate the feast of Shelters 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, your son and your daughter, your serving men and women, the Levite, the foreigner, the orphan and the widow living in your community.

¹⁵ For seven days, you must celebrate the feast for Yahweh your God in the place chosen by Yahweh; for Yahweh your God will bless you in all your produce and in all your undertakings, so that you will have good reason to rejoice.

¹⁶ 'Three times a year all your menfolk must appear before Yahweh your God in the place chosen by him: at the feast of Unleavened Bread, at the feast of Weeks, at the feast of Shelters. No one must appear empty-handed before Yahweh,

¹⁷ but each must give what he can, in proportion to the blessing which Yahweh your God has bestowed on you.

¹⁸ 'You must appoint judges and scribes in each of the towns that Yahweh your God is giving you, for all your tribes; these are to mete out proper justice to the people.

¹⁹ You must not pervert the law; you must be impartial; you will take no bribes, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and ruins the cause of the upright.

²⁰ Strict justice must be your ideal, so that you may live long in possession of the country given you by Yahweh your God.

²¹ 'You must not plant a sacred pole of any wood whatsoever beside the altar which you erect for Yahweh your God;

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