Deuteronomy 16

1Observe the month of Abib and celebrate the Passover to Yahweh your God, for in the month of Abib Yahweh your God brought you out of Egypt by night.

2Sacrifice the Passover to Yahweh your God from the flock or the herd in the place Yahweh will choose to make his name dwell.

3Do not eat anything leavened with it. For seven days eat unleavened bread with it, the bread of affliction, for you left the land of Egypt in haste. Do this so that all the days of your life you may remember the day you left the land of Egypt.

4No yeast is to be found with you anywhere in your territory for seven days, and none of the meat you sacrifice on the evening of the first day is to remain until morning.

5You may not sacrifice the Passover in just any of the towns that Yahweh your God is giving you,

6but only at the place that Yahweh your God will choose to make his name dwell. There you are to sacrifice the Passover in the evening at sunset, at the time you came out of Egypt.

7Cook it and eat it in the place that Yahweh your God will choose. Then in the morning turn back and go to your tents.

8For six days eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day hold a solemn assembly to Yahweh your God. Do no work on that day.

9Count seven weeks. Begin counting the seven weeks from the time you first put the sickle to the standing grain.

10Then celebrate the Festival of Weeks to Yahweh your God with a freewill offering from your hand, which you are to give in proportion to how Yahweh your God has blessed you.

11Rejoice before Yahweh your God in the place that Yahweh your God will choose to make his name dwell—you, your son and daughter, your male and female servants, the Levite who lives within your towns, and the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow who live among you.

12Remember that you were a slave in Egypt, and be careful to follow these statutes.

13Celebrate the Festival of Booths for seven days when you have gathered in the produce from your threshing floor and your winepress.

14Rejoice at your festival—you, your son and daughter, your male and female servants, the Levite, the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow who live within your towns.

15For seven days celebrate the festival to Yahweh your God in the place that Yahweh will choose, for Yahweh your God will bless you in all your produce and in all the work of your hands, and you will be full of joy.

16Three times a year all your males must appear before Yahweh your God in the place he will choose: at the Festival of Unleavened Bread, at the Festival of Weeks, and at the Festival of Booths. No one is to appear before Yahweh empty-handed.

17Each of you must give as he is able, according to the blessing that Yahweh your God has given you.

18Appoint judges and officers for your tribes in all the towns that Yahweh your God is giving you, and they are to judge the people fairly.

19Do not pervert justice. Do not show partiality, and do not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and twists the words of the righteous.

20Justice, and only justice, you are to pursue, so that you may live and take possession of the land that Yahweh your God is giving you.

21Do not plant any kind of tree as an Asherah pole beside the altar that you will make for Yahweh your God.

22And do not set up a sacred pillar, which Yahweh your God hates.