For the Jews there was radiant happiness and joyous honor. ¹ 

Serve ¹  the Lord in fear! Repent in terror! ² 

Then came the feast of the Dedication ¹  in Jerusalem. ² 

It is a Sabbath of complete rest for you, and you must humble yourselves on the ninth day of the month in the evening, from evening until evening you must observe your Sabbath.” ¹ 

In the fourteenth day of this month, at twilight, ¹  you are to observe it at its appointed time; you must keep ²  it in accordance with all its statutes and all its customs.” ³ 

“‘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.

They went out to the field, harvested their grapes, ¹  squeezed out the juice, ²  and celebrated. They came to the temple ³  of their god and ate, drank, and cursed Abimelech.

The rulers of the Philistines gathered to offer a great sacrifice to Dagon their god and to celebrate. They said, “Our god has handed Samson, our enemy, over to us.”

So all the preparations for the Lord’s service were made that day, as the Passover was observed and the burnt sacrifices were offered on the altar of the Lord, as prescribed by King Josiah.

Let us rejoice ¹  and exult and give him glory, because the wedding celebration of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready.

Then she saw ¹  the king standing by his pillar at the entrance. The officers and trumpeters stood beside the king and all the people of the land were celebrating and blowing trumpets, and the musicians with various instruments were leading the celebration. Athaliah tore her clothes and yelled, “Treason! Treason!” ² 

A Passover like this had not been observed in Israel since the days of Samuel the prophet. None of the kings of Israel had observed a Passover like the one celebrated by Josiah, the priests, the Levites, all the people of Judah and Israel who were there, and the residents of Jerusalem.

These days were to be remembered and to be celebrated in every generation and in every family, every province, and every city. The Jews were not to fail to observe these days of Purim; the remembrance of them was not to cease among their descendants.

but he answered ¹  his father, ‘Look! These many years I have worked like a slave ²  for you, and I never disobeyed your commands. Yet ³  you never gave me even a goat ⁴  so that I could celebrate with my friends!

Moses said, “We will go with our young and our old, with our sons and our daughters, and with our sheep and our cattle we will go, because we are to hold ¹  a pilgrim feast for the Lord.”

So you will keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread, because on this very ¹  day I brought your regiments ²  out from the land of Egypt, and so you must keep this day perpetually as a lasting ordinance. ³ 

“Tell the Israelites, ‘If any ¹  of you or of your posterity become ceremonially defiled by touching a dead body, or are on a journey far away, then he may ²  observe the Passover to the Lord.

But ¹  the man who is ceremonially clean, and was not on a journey, and fails ²  to keep the Passover, that person must be cut off from his people. ³  Because he did not bring the Lord’s offering at its appointed time, that man must bear his sin. ⁴ 

If a resident foreigner lives ¹  among you and wants to keep ²  the Passover to the Lord, he must do so according to the statute of the Passover, and according to its custom. You must have ³  the same ⁴  statute for the resident foreigner ⁵  and for the one who was born in the land.’”

As the ark of the Lord’s covenant entered the City of David, Michal, Saul’s daughter, looked out the window. When she saw King David jumping and celebrating, she despised him. ¹