All the people living in Jerusalem ¹  and all the people who came into Jerusalem from the towns of Judah came to observe a fast before the Lord. The fast took place in the ninth month of the fifth year that Jehoiakim son of Josiah was ruling over Judah. ² 

take them and purify ¹  yourself along with them and pay their expenses, ²  so that they may have their heads shaved. ³  Then ⁴  everyone will know there is nothing in what they have been told ⁵  about you, but that you yourself live in conformity with ⁶  the law. ⁷ 

For see what this very thing, this sadness ¹  as God intended, has produced in you: what eagerness, what defense of yourselves, ²  what indignation, ³  what alarm, what longing, what deep concern, ⁴  what punishment! ⁵  In everything you have proved yourselves to be innocent in this matter.

Then he said, ‘Observe ¹  that all the male goats mating with ²  the flock are streaked, speckled, or spotted, for I have observed all that Laban has done to you.

Then Joseph remembered ¹  the dreams he had dreamed about them, and he said to them, “You are spies; you have come to see if our land is vulnerable!” ² 

This day will become ¹  a memorial ²  for you, and you will celebrate it as a festival ³  to the Lord – you will celebrate it perpetually as a lasting ordinance. ⁴ 

“You must keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread. For seven days ¹  you must eat bread made without yeast, as I commanded you; do this ²  at the appointed time of the month Abib, for in the month Abib you came out of Egypt.

“‘You must be sure to obey all my statutes and regulations, ¹  so that ²  the land to which I am about to bring you to take up residence there does not vomit you out.

You must celebrate it as a pilgrim festival to the Lord for seven days in the year. This is a perpetual statute throughout your generations; ¹  you must celebrate it in the seventh month.

So you are to appoint Aaron and his sons, and they will be responsible for their priesthood; ¹  but the unauthorized person ²  who comes near must be put to death.”

It happened that some men ¹  who were ceremonially defiled ²  by the dead body of a man ³  could not keep ⁴  the Passover on that day, so they came before Moses and before Aaron on that day.

and whether the land they live in is good or bad, and whether the cities they inhabit are like camps or fortified cities,

Balak said to him, “Please come with me to another place from which you can observe them. You will see only a part of them, but you will not see all of them. Curse them for me from there.”

“Command the Israelites: ¹  ‘With regard to my offering, ²  be sure to offer ³  my food for my offering made by fire, as a pleasing aroma to me at its appointed time.’ ⁴ 

“‘On the fifteenth day of the seventh month you are to have a holy assembly; you must do no ordinary work, and you must keep a festival to the Lord for seven days.

Look! I have taught you statutes and ordinances just as the Lord my God told me to do, so that you might carry them out in ¹  the land you are about to enter and possess.

So realize that the Lord your God is the true God, ¹  the faithful God who keeps covenant faithfully ²  with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations,

Be sure you do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping his commandments, ordinances, and statutes that I am giving you today.

Now pay attention to all the commandments ¹  I am giving ²  you today, so that you may be strong enough to enter and possess the land where you are headed, ³ 

for you may do so ¹  only in the place the Lord chooses in one of your tribal areas – there you may do everything I am commanding you. ²