Exodus 23:14-19

Contemporary English Version

Three Annual Festivals

(Exodus 34.18-26; Deuteronomy 16.1-17)

The Lord said:

¹⁴Celebrate three festivals each year in my honor.

¹⁵^(A) Celebrate the Festival of Thin Bread by eating bread made without yeast, just as I have commanded.^[a] Do this at the proper time during the month of Abib,^[b] because it is the month when you left Egypt. And make certain that everyone brings the proper offerings.

¹⁶^(B) Celebrate the Harvest Festival^[c] each spring when you start harvesting your wheat, and celebrate the Festival of Shelters^[d] each autumn when you pick your fruit.

¹⁷Your men must come to these three festivals each year to worship me.

¹⁸Do not offer bread made with yeast when you sacrifice an animal to me. And make sure that the fat of the animal is burned that same day.

¹⁹^(C) Each year bring the best part of your first harvest to the place of worship.

Don't boil a young goat in its mother's milk.

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Footnotes

23.15 as I have commanded: See 12.14-20.
23.15 Abib: See the note at 12.2.
23.16 Harvest Festival: Traditionally called the “Festival of Weeks” and known in New Testament times as “Pentecost.”
23.16 Festival of Shelters: The Hebrew text has “Festival of Ingathering” (so also in 34.22), which was the final harvesting of crops and fruits before the autumn rains began. But the usual name was “Festival of Shelters.”