The Festival of Tents is Reinstituted^(A)

¹³ The next day, the heads of the families of all the people were gathered together, along with the priests and the descendants of Levi, to meet with^[a] Ezra the scribe in order to understand the words of the Law. ¹⁴ They found written in the Law that the Lord had commanded through Moses that the Israelis were to live in tents^[b] during the festival scheduled for the seventh month. ¹⁵ So they circulated a proclamation throughout their towns and in Jerusalem. It said, “Go out to the hill country and bring back olive branches, wild olive branches, myrtle branches, palm branches, and branches of mature trees, in order to set up tents, as has been written.”

¹⁶ Then the people went out and found branches to make tents for themselves on the roofs of their houses, in their courtyards, and in the courts of God’s Temple, in the plaza near the Water Gate, and in the plaza near the Gate of Ephraim. ¹⁷ The entire assembly of those who had returned from exile erected tents and lived in them. Indeed, from the days of Nun’s son Joshua until that day the Israelis had not done so. Joy was everywhere,^{[c] 18} and Ezra^[d] continued to read from the Book of the Law of God day by day, from the first day through the last. They celebrated for seven days, and on the eighth day they held a solemn assembly according to regulation.