⁴⁰ And ^(A)you shall take for yourselves on the first day the ^[a]fruit of beautiful trees, branches of palm trees, the boughs of leafy trees, and willows of the brook; ^(B)and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God for seven days. ^41 (C)You shall keep it as a feast to the Lord for seven days in the year. It shall be a statute forever in your generations. You shall celebrate it in the seventh month. ^42 (D)You shall dwell in ^[b]booths for seven days. ^(E)All who are native Israelites shall dwell in booths, ^43 (F)that your generations may ^(G)know that I made the children of Israel dwell in booths when ^(H)I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.’ ”

¹⁵ and ^(A)that they should announce and proclaim in all their cities and ^(B)in Jerusalem, saying, “Go out to the mountain, and ^(C)bring olive branches, branches of oil trees, myrtle branches, palm branches, and branches of leafy trees, to make booths, as it is written.”

¹⁶ Then the people went out and brought them and made themselves booths, each one on the ^(D)roof of his house, or in their courtyards or the courts of the house of God, and in the open square of the ^(E)Water Gate ^(F)and in the open square of the Gate of Ephraim. ¹⁷ So the whole assembly of those who had returned from the captivity made ^[a]booths and sat under the booths; for since the days of Joshua the son of Nun until that day the children of Israel had not done so. And there was very ^(G)great gladness.

² that the king said to Nathan the prophet, “See now, I dwell in ^(A)a house of cedar, ^(B)but the ark of God dwells inside tent ^(C)curtains.”

⁹ By faith he dwelt in the land of promise as in a foreign country, ^(A)dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, ^(B)the heirs with him of the same promise; ¹⁰ for he waited for ^(C)the city which has foundations, ^(D)whose builder and maker is God.

¹¹ By faith ^(E)Sarah herself also received strength to conceive seed, and ^(F)she^[a] bore a child when she was past the age, because she judged Him ^(G)faithful who had promised. ¹² Therefore from one man, and him as good as ^(H)dead, were born as many as the ^(I)stars of the sky in multitude—innumerable as the sand which is by the seashore.

The Heavenly Hope

¹³ These all died in faith, ^(J)not having received the ^(K)promises, but ^(L)having seen them afar off ^[b]were assured of them, embraced them and ^(M)confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.

^2 (A)Now the Jews’ Feast of Tabernacles was at hand.

The Nations Worship the King

¹⁶ And it shall come to pass that everyone who is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall ^(A)go up from year to year to ^(B)worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep ^(C)the Feast of Tabernacles. ^17 (D)And it shall be that whichever of the families of the earth do not come up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, on them there will be no rain. ¹⁸ If the family of ^(E)Egypt will not come up and enter in, ^(F)they shall have no rain; they shall receive the plague with which the Lord strikes the nations who do not come up to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. ¹⁹ This shall be the ^[a]punishment of Egypt and the punishment of all the nations that do not come up to keep the Feast of Tabernacles.

⁷ You shall not build a house, sow seed, plant a vineyard, nor have any of these; but all your days you shall dwell in tents, ^(A)that you may live many days in the land where you are sojourners.’