Do not carry any loads out of your houses or do any work on the Sabbath day. ¹  But observe the Sabbath day as a day set apart to the Lord, ²  as I commanded your ancestors. ³ 

“‘Sure to be judged ¹  is the king who builds his palace using injustice and treats people unfairly while adding its upper rooms. ²  He makes his countrymen work for him for nothing. He does not pay them for their labor.

Work to see that the city where I sent you as exiles enjoys peace and prosperity. Pray to the Lord for it. For as it prospers you will prosper.’

‘Think carefully about the past: ¹  from today, the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, ²  to the day work on the temple of the Lord was resumed, ³  think about it. ⁴ 

whose mother is a Danite and whose father is a Tyrian. ¹  He knows how to work with gold, silver, bronze, iron, stones, and wood, as well as purple, violet, white, and crimson fabrics. He knows how to do all kinds of engraving and understands any design given to him. He will work with your skilled craftsmen and the skilled craftsmen of my lord David your father.

In the second year after they had come to the temple of God in Jerusalem, ¹  in the second month, Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel and Jeshua the son of Jozadak initiated the work, ²  along with the rest of their associates, ³  the priests and the Levites, and all those who were coming to Jerusalem from the exile. They appointed ⁴  the Levites who were at least twenty years old ⁵  to take charge of the work on the Lord’s temple.

On the first day there will be a holy convocation, ¹  and on the seventh day there will be a holy convocation for you. You must do no work of any kind ²  on them, only what every person will eat – that alone may be prepared for you.

He said to them, “This is what the Lord has said: ‘Tomorrow is a time of cessation from work, ¹  a holy Sabbath ²  to the Lord. Whatever you want to ³  bake, bake today; ⁴  whatever you want to boil, boil today; whatever is left put aside for yourselves to be kept until morning.’”

but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; on it ¹  you shall not do any work, you, ²  or your son, or your daughter, or your male servant, or your female servant, or your cattle, or the resident foreigner who is in your gates. ³ 

For six days you are to do your work, but on the seventh day you must cease, in order that your ox and your donkey may rest and that your female servant’s son and any hired help ¹  may refresh themselves. ² 

“You are to make a breastpiece for use in making decisions, ¹  the work of an artistic designer; you are to make it in the same fashion as the ephod; you are to make it of gold, blue, purple, scarlet, and fine twisted linen.

So you must keep the Sabbath, for it is holy for you. Everyone who defiles it ¹  must surely be put to death; indeed, ²  if anyone does ³  any ⁴  work on it, then that person will be cut off from among his ⁵  people.

He said, “See, I am going to make ¹  a covenant before all your people. I will do wonders such as have not been done ²  in all the earth, nor in any nation. All the people among whom you live will see the work of the Lord, for it is a fearful thing that I am doing with you. ³ 

The curtain ¹  for the gate of the courtyard was of blue, purple, and scarlet yarn and fine twisted linen, the work of an embroiderer. It was thirty feet long, and like the hangings in the courtyard, it was seven and a half feet high,

Also, anything they fall on ¹  when they die will become unclean – any wood vessel or garment or article of leather or sackcloth. Any such vessel with which work is done must be immersed in water ²  and will be unclean until the evening. Then it will become clean.

“This is to be a perpetual statute for you. ¹  In the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you must humble yourselves ²  and do no work of any kind, ³  both the native citizen and the foreigner who resides ⁴  in your midst,

For seven days you must present a gift to the Lord. On the eighth day there is to be a holy assembly for you, and you must present a gift to the Lord. It is a solemn assembly day; ¹  you must not do any regular work.

I have given the Levites as a gift to Aaron and his sons from among the Israelites, to do the work for the Israelites in the tent of meeting, and to make atonement for the Israelites, so there will be no plague among the Israelites when the Israelites come near the sanctuary.” ¹ 

but the seventh day is the Sabbath ¹  of the Lord your God. On that day you must not do any work, you, your son, your daughter, your male slave, your female slave, your ox, your donkey, any other animal, or the foreigner who lives with you, ²  so that your male and female slaves, like yourself, may have rest.

Then the Levites (because they have no allotment or inheritance with you), the resident foreigners, the orphans, and the widows of your villages may come and eat their fill so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work you do.