Israel’s three feasts
1 ① Observe the month of Abib and celebrate the Passover in honor of Yahweh since it was in this month that Yahweh, your God, brought you out of Egypt by night. 2On the Passover, you shall sacrifice oxen and sheep to Yahweh in the place he has chosen for his Name to dwell. 3For the Passover supper, you are not to eat leavened bread, but for seven days, you shall eat unleavened bread, the bread of affliction, because you left Egypt hastily. So you shall remember all the days of your life the day on which you left Egypt.
4For seven days, no leaven shall be seen throughout your territory; nor shall any of the flesh you sacrificed on the evening of the first day be left for the following day.
5You may not offer the Passover sacrifice in any city which Yahweh gives you, 6but only in the place chosen by Yahweh as the dwelling place for his Name.
Sacrifice the Passover in the evening, at sunset, at the time you came out of Egypt. 7You shall roast it and eat it in the place chosen by Yahweh, your God. And then, in the morning you shall return to your house. 8You shall eat unleavened bread for six days, and on the seventh, you shall celebrate a solemn assembly in honor of Yahweh and you shall not work.
9You shall count seven weeks, beginning from the day you start cutting the standing wheat. 10Then you shall celebrate the Feast of the Seven Weeks for Yahweh, your God, making a voluntary offering from your harvest in proportion to the way Yahweh, your God, blesses you.
11At the place Yahweh has chosen as the dwelling place for his Name, you shall feast, you and your children, your servants, the Levite who lives in your cities, the foreigner, the orphan and the widow who live among you. 12Remember that you were a slave in Egypt and be careful to put these precepts into practice.
13Celebrate too the Feast of the Tents for seven days, after gathering the produce of your threshing floor and of your winepress. 14Rejoice during this feast — you and your children, your servants, the Levite, the foreigner, the orphan and the widow who live in your city. 15You shall feast for seven days in honor of Yahweh at the place chosen by him; because Yahweh will bless you in all your produce and in all the work of your hands, so that your joy may be complete.
16Three times a year all your men shall present themselves before Yahweh, your God, in the place chosen by him: on the Feast of Unleavened Bread, on the Feast of Weeks, and on the Feast of Tents. And you shall not present yourselves empty-handed, 17but each one will offer in proportion to what he has, according to the blessing that Yahweh has bestowed upon you.
Regarding justice
18Appoint judges and secretaries for your tribes in every city which Yahweh gives you, that they may judge the people according to justice.
19You shall not bend the law or show partiality. Do not accept gifts because gifts blind the eyes of the wise and subvert the cause of the righteous. 20Justice! Seek justice if you want to live and inherit the land which Yahweh, your God, gives you.
21Do not plant any tree or sacred pillar near the altar of your God. 22Do not put up there the sacred stones that Yahweh hates.
- Dt 16,1 What refers to the feasts is very similar to what is read in Leviticus 23. Notice the insistence on the obligation of celebrating this feast at the place which Yahweh has chosen, that is to say, in Jerusalem. Hence the pilgrimage of the Jews to Jerusalem, at least on the occasion of the Passover feast. Jesus himself will observe this law which applies to all males, from twelve years of age onwards (Lk 2:41). In several passages of the Gospel we read: Jesus went up to Jerusalem for the Feast (Jn 2:13; 5:1).
