Deuteronomy 16

Passover, Weeks, and Booths

1Observe the month of Abib and keep the Passover to Yahweh your God, because it was in the month of Abib that 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 chooses for his name to dwell. 3Do not eat leavened bread with it. For seven days eat unleavened bread with it, the bread of affliction, because you left the land of Egypt in haste — so that you may remember, all the days of your life, the day you came out of the land of Egypt. 4No yeast is to be found anywhere within 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 within any of the gates Yahweh your God is giving you. 6You are to sacrifice it only at the place Yahweh your God chooses for his name to dwell, in the evening, at sunset, at the time of day you came out of Egypt. 7Cook it and eat it at the place Yahweh your God chooses, then in the morning turn and go back 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. 9Count off seven weeks for yourself, beginning to count them from the time the sickle is first put to the standing grain. 10Then keep the Festival of Weeks to Yahweh your God, giving a freewill offering in proportion to how Yahweh your God has blessed you. 11Rejoice before Yahweh your God — you, your son and daughter, your male and female servant, the Levite within your gates, and the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow among you — in the place Yahweh your God chooses for his name to dwell. 12Remember that you were a slave in Egypt, and carefully keep and do these statutes. 13Keep the Festival of Booths for seven days, after you have gathered in the produce of your threshing floor and winepress. 14Rejoice at your festival — you, your son and daughter, your male and female servant, and the Levite, the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow within your gates. 15Celebrate the festival to Yahweh your God for seven days, in the place Yahweh chooses, because Yahweh your God will bless you in all your produce and in all the work of your hands, and your joy will be complete. 16Three times a year all your males are to appear before Yahweh your God at the place he chooses: at the Festival of Unleavened Bread, the Festival of Weeks, and the Festival of Booths. No one is to appear before Yahweh empty-handed — 17each is to give as he is able, according to the blessing Yahweh your God has given you.

Judges, and justice without bribes

18Appoint judges and officials for yourselves within all your gates that Yahweh your God is giving you, tribe by tribe, and they are to judge the people with righteous judgment. 19Do not twist justice or show partiality, and do not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and distorts the words of the righteous. 20Justice, and justice alone, you must pursue, so that you may live and possess the land Yahweh your God is giving you. 21Do not plant any tree as an Asherah pole next to the altar you build for Yahweh your God, 22and do not set up a sacred pillar, for Yahweh your God hates it.