God's New Bible

The Third Book of Moses: Leviticus

Catholic Public Domain Version 2009

- Chapter 23 -

(Exodus 23:14–19)
1
And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying:
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Speak to the sons of Israel, and you shall say to them: These are the feasts of the Lord, which you shall call holy.
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For six days you shall do work; the seventh day, because it is the rest of the Sabbath, shall be called holy. You shall do no work on that day; it is the Sabbath of the Lord in all your dwelling places.

Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread

(Exodus 12:14–28; Numbers 28:16–25; Deuteronomy 16:1–8)
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Therefore, these are the feasts of the Lord, which you must celebrate in their times.
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The first month, the fourteenth day of the month, at evening, is the Passover of the Lord.
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And the fifteenth day of this month is the solemnity of the unleavened bread of the Lord. For seven days shall you eat unleavened bread.
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The first day shall be greatly honored and holy to you; you shall do no servile work in it.
8
But you shall offer a sacrifice with fire, for seven days, to the Lord. Then the seventh day shall be more honored and more holy; and you shall do no servile work in it.

The Feast of Firstfruits

9
And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying:
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Speak to the sons of Israel, and you shall say to them: When you will have entered into the land which I will give to you, and you will have harvested your grain fields, you shall carry the sheaves of grain, the first-fruits of your harvest, to the priest.
11
He shall lift up a sheaf before the Lord, on the day after the Sabbath, so that it may be acceptable for you, and he shall sanctify it.
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And on the same day that the sheaf is consecrated, a one-year-old immaculate lamb shall be slain as a holocaust of the Lord.
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And the libations shall be offered with it: two-tenths of fine wheat flour sprinkled with oil, as an incense and a most sweet odor for the Lord; likewise, libations of wine, the fourth part of a hin.
14
Bread, and parched grain, and boiled grain, you shall not eat from the grain field, until the day when you shall offer from it to your God. It is an everlasting precept in your generations and in all of your dwelling places.(a)

The Feast of Weeks

(Acts 2:1–13)
15
Therefore, you shall number from the day after the Sabbath, in which you offered a sheaf of the first-fruits, seven full weeks,
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all the way to the day after the completion of the seventh week, that is, fifty days, and then you shall offer a new sacrifice to the Lord,
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from all of your dwelling places: two loaves from the first-fruits, from two-tenths of leavened fine wheat flour, which you shall bake as the first-fruits of the Lord.
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And you shall offer with the bread: seven immaculate one-year-old lambs, and one calf from the herd, and two rams, and these shall be a holocaust, with their libations, as a most sweet odor to the Lord.
19
You shall also offer a he-goat for sin, and two one-year-old lambs as victims of peace offerings.
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And when the priest has lifted them up with the loaves of the first-fruits, in the sight of the Lord, they shall fall to his use.
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And you shall call this day most honored and most holy; you shall do no servile work in it. It shall be an everlasting ordinance in all your dwelling places and generations.
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And when you will have harvested the grain fields of your land, you shall not cut it down all the way to the ground; neither shall you gather the remnants of the ears of grain, but you shall leave these for paupers and strangers. I am the Lord your God.

The Feast of Trumpets

(Numbers 29:1–6)
23
And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying:
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Say to the sons of Israel: The seventh month, the first day of the month, shall be a Sabbath for you, a memorial, with the sounding of trumpets, and it shall be called holy.
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You shall do no servile work in it, and you shall offer a holocaust to the Lord.

The Day of Atonement

(Leviticus 16:1–34; Numbers 29:7–11)
26
And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying:
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The tenth day of this seventh month shall be the day of atonement; it shall be most honored, and it shall be called holy. And you shall afflict your souls on that day, and you shall offer a holocaust to the Lord.
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You shall do no servile work in the time of this day; for it is a day of propitiation, so that the Lord your God may be merciful to you.
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Every soul that has not been afflicted on this day shall perish from his people,
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and anyone who will have done work, I shall wipe him away from his people.
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Therefore, you shall do no work on that day. This shall be an everlasting ordinance for you in all your generations and dwelling places.
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It is a Sabbath of rest, and you shall afflict your souls beginning on the ninth day of the month: from evening until evening you shall celebrate your Sabbaths.

The Feast of Tabernacles

(Nehemiah 8:13–18; Zechariah 14:16–21)
33
And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying:
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Say to the sons of Israel: From the fifteenth day of this seventh month, there shall be the Feast of Tabernacles: seven days for the Lord.
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The first day shall be called most honored and most holy; you shall do no servile work in it.
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And for seven days you shall offer holocausts to the Lord. Likewise, the eighth day shall be most honored and most holy, and you shall offer holocausts to the Lord. For it is the day of assembly and gathering. You shall do no servile work in it.
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These are the feasts of the Lord, which you shall call most honored and most holy, and in them you shall offer oblations to the Lord: holocausts and libations according to the rite of each particular day,
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aside from the Sabbaths of the Lord, and your donations, and that which you offer by a vow, or which you give to the Lord spontaneously.
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Therefore, from the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you will have gathered together all the fruits of your land, you shall celebrate the feast of the Lord for seven days. The first day and the eighth day shall be a Sabbath, that is, a day of rest.
40
And you shall take for yourselves, on the first day, the fruits of the most beautiful tree, and branches of palm trees, and branches of trees with thick foliage, and willows from the torrent. And you shall rejoice in the sight of the Lord your God.(b)
41
And you shall celebrate its solemnity for seven days each year. This shall be an everlasting ordinance in your generations. In the seventh month, you shall celebrate the feast,
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and you shall live under shelters for seven days. All who are of the family of Israel shall dwell in tabernacles,
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so that your posterity may learn that I caused the sons of Israel to live in tabernacles, when I led them away from the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God.
44
And Moses spoke about the solemnities of the Lord to the sons of Israel.

Footnotes

(a)23:14 The day for this offering of the first-fruits from the grain field is the day after the first Sabbath of the Passover. The disciples of Jesus were eating from the grain field on the second-first Sabbath, that is, on the first Sabbath after the Passover, not on the first Sabbath during the Passover. Therefore, they were eating from the grain field after the first-fruits had been offered.(Conte)
(b)23:40 The word ‘tree’ is singular because it is a foreshadowing of the Virgin Mary, the most beautiful tree from the human race, who gave birth to the Messiah as the fruit of her womb.(Conte)