The Festival of Booths

³³ The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ³⁴ “Speak to the Israelites, saying: On the fifteenth day of this seventh month and lasting seven days, there shall be the Festival of Booths^[a] to the Lord.^{(A) 35} The first day shall be a holy convocation; you shall not work at your occupations. ³⁶ Seven days you shall present the Lord’s offerings by fire;^[b] on the eighth day you shall observe a holy convocation and present the Lord’s offerings by fire;^[c] it is a solemn assembly; you shall not work at your occupations.^(B)

³⁷ “These are the appointed festivals of the Lord that you shall celebrate as times of holy convocation, for presenting to the Lord offerings by fire^[d]—burnt offerings and grain offerings, sacrifices and drink offerings, each on its proper day^(C)— ³⁸ apart from the Sabbaths of the Lord and apart from your gifts and apart from all your votive offerings and apart from all your freewill offerings that you give to the Lord.

³⁹ “Now, the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you have gathered in the produce of the land, you shall keep the festival of the Lord, lasting seven days, a complete rest on the first day and a complete rest on the eighth day.^{(D) 40} On the first day you shall take the fruit of majestic^[e] trees, branches of palm trees, boughs of leafy trees, and willows of the brook, and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God for seven days.^{(E) 41} You shall keep it as a festival to the Lord lasting seven days in the year; you shall keep it in the seventh month as a statute forever throughout your generations. ⁴² You shall live in booths for seven days; all who are native-born in Israel shall live in booths,^{(F) 43} so that your generations may know that I made the Israelites live in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.”

The Festival of Booths Reviewed

¹³ “You shall keep the Festival of Booths^[a] for seven days, when you have gathered in the produce from your threshing floor and your winepress.^{(A) 14} Rejoice during your festival, you and your sons and your daughters, your male and female slaves, as well as the Levites, the strangers, the orphans, and the widows resident in your towns.^{(B) 15} Seven days you shall keep the festival to the Lord your God at the place that the Lord will choose, for the Lord your God will bless you in all your produce and in all your undertakings, and you shall surely celebrate.^(C)

The Festival of Booths Celebrated

¹³ On the second day the heads of ancestral houses of all the people, with the priests and the Levites, came together to Ezra the scribe in order to study the words of the law. ¹⁴ And they found it written in the law that the Lord had commanded by Moses that the Israelites should live in booths^[a] during the festival of the seventh month^{(A) 15} and that they should publish and proclaim in all their towns and in Jerusalem as follows, “Go out to the hills and bring branches of olive, wild olive, myrtle, palm, and other leafy trees to make booths,^[b] as it is written.”^{(B) 16} So the people went out and brought them and made booths^[c] for themselves, each on the roofs of their houses, and in their courts and in the courts of the house of God, and in the square at the Water Gate and in the square at the Gate of Ephraim.^{(C) 17} And all the assembly of those who had returned from the captivity made booths^[d] and lived in them, for from the days of Jeshua son of Nun to that day the Israelites had not done so. And there was very great rejoicing.^{(D) 18} And day by day, from the first day to the last day, Ezra^[e] read from the book of the law of God. They kept the festival seven days, and on the eighth day there was a solemn assembly, according to the ordinance.^(E)

¹⁶ Then all who survive of the nations that have come against Jerusalem shall go up year after year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the Festival of Booths.^{[a](A) 17} If any of the families of the earth do not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, there will be no rain upon them.^{(B) 18} And if the family of Egypt do not go up and present themselves, there will be no rain for them; there will be the plague that the Lord inflicts on the nations that do not go up to keep the Festival of Booths.^{[b](C) 19} Such shall be the punishment of Egypt and the punishment of all the nations that do not go up to keep the Festival of Booths.^[c](D)