² So on the first day of the seventh month^(A) Ezra the priest brought the Law^(B) before the assembly, which was made up of men and women and all who were able to understand.

²⁴ “Say to the Israelites: ‘On the first day of the seventh month you are to have a day of sabbath rest, a sacred assembly^(A) commemorated with trumpet blasts.^(B)

The Festival of Trumpets^(A)

29 “‘On the first day of the seventh month hold a sacred assembly and do no regular work.^(B) It is a day for you to sound the trumpets.

²¹ For the law of Moses has been preached in every city from the earliest times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath.”^(A)

⁷ “For the lips of a priest^(A) ought to preserve knowledge, because he is the messenger^(B) of the Lord Almighty and people seek instruction from his mouth.^(C)

Public Reading of the Law

⁹ So Moses wrote^(A) down this law and gave it to the Levitical priests, who carried^(B) the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and to all the elders of Israel. ¹⁰ Then Moses commanded them: “At the end of every seven years, in the year for canceling debts,^(C) during the Festival of Tabernacles,^{(D) 11} when all Israel comes to appear^(E) before the Lord your God at the place he will choose,^(F) you shall read this law^(G) before them in their hearing. ¹² Assemble the people—men, women and children, and the foreigners residing in your towns—so they can listen and learn^(H) to fear^(I) the Lord your God and follow carefully all the words of this law. ¹³ Their children,^(J) who do not know this law, must hear it and learn to fear the Lord your God as long as you live in the land you are crossing the Jordan to possess.”

¹⁸ When he takes the throne^(A) of his kingdom, he is to write^(B) for himself on a scroll a copy^(C) of this law, taken from that of the Levitical priests.

⁷ In the third year of his reign he sent his officials Ben-Hail, Obadiah, Zechariah, Nethanel and Micaiah to teach^(A) in the towns of Judah. ⁸ With them were certain Levites^(B)—Shemaiah, Nethaniah, Zebadiah, Asahel, Shemiramoth, Jehonathan, Adonijah, Tobijah and Tob-Adonijah—and the priests Elishama and Jehoram. ⁹ They taught throughout Judah, taking with them the Book of the Law^(C) of the Lord; they went around to all the towns of Judah and taught the people.