16

1Observe the month of Abib, and you shall make Passover for YHWH, your God, because in the month of Abib YHWH, your God, brought you out from Egypt at night. 2And you shall make a Passover sacrifice to YHWH, your God, of the flock and herd, in the place that YHWH will choose to tent His name there. 3You shall not eat leavened bread with it. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, the bread of degradation, with it, because you went out from the land of Egypt in haste—so that you will remember the day you went out from the land of Egypt all the days of your life. 4And you shall not have leaven appear within all your borders for seven days, and none of the meat that you will sacrifice in the evening on the first day shall remain until the morning. 5You may not make the Passover sacrifice within one of your gates that YHWH, your God, is giving you. 6But, rather, to the place that YHWH, your God, will choose to tent His name: there you shall make the Passover sacrifice in the evening at sunset, the time when you went out from Egypt. 7And you shall cook and eat it in the place that YHWH, your God, will choose; and you shall turn in the morning and go to your tents. 8Six days you shall eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day shall be a convocation to YHWH, your God. You shall not do work.

9You shall count seven weeks. From when the sickle begins to be in the standing grain you shall begin to count seven weeks. 10And you shall make a Festival of Weeks for YHWH, your God, the full amount of your hand’s contribution that you can give insofar as YHWH, your God, will bless you. 11And you shall rejoice in front of YHWH, your God—you and your son and your daughter and your servant and your maid and the Levite who is within your gates and the alien and the orphan and the widow who are among you—in the place that YHWH, your God, will choose to tent His name there. 12And you shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt, and you shall be watchful and do these laws.

13You shall make a Festival of Booths seven days, when you gather from your threshing floor and from your wine press. 14And you shall rejoice on your festival—you and your son and your daughter and your servant and your maid and the Levite and the alien and the orphan and the widow who are within your gates. 15Seven days you shall celebrate for YHWH, your God, in the place that YHWH will choose, because YHWH, your God, will bless you in all your produce and all your hands’ work, and you shall just be happy.

16Three times in the year every male of yours shall appear in front of YHWH, your God, in the place that He will choose: on the Festival of Unleavened Bread and on the Festival of Weeks and on the Festival of Booths. And he shall not appear in front of YHWH empty-handed: 17each according to what his hand can give, according to the blessing of YHWH, your God, that He has given you.

18You shall put judges and officers in all your gates that YHWH, your God, is giving you, for your tribes, and they shall judge the people: judgment with justice. 19You shall not bend judgment, you shall not recognize a face, and you shall not take a bribe, because bribery will blind the eyes of the wise and undermine the words of the virtuous. 20Justice, justice you shall pursue, so that you’ll live, and you’ll take possession of the land that YHWH, your God, is giving you.

21You shall not plant an Asherah of any wood near the altar of YHWH, your God, that you will make. 22And you shall not set up a pillar, which YHWH, your God, hates.