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!

And those who live on the earth will rejoice over them and celebrate, even sending gifts to each other, because these two prophets had tormented those who live on the earth.

You are to celebrate the festival seven days before the Lord your God in the place he ¹  chooses, for he ²  will bless you in all your productivity and in whatever you do; ³  so you will indeed rejoice!

(2:1) ¹  Look! A herald is running ²  on the mountains! A messenger is proclaiming deliverance: ³  “Celebrate your sacred festivals, O Judah! Fulfill your sacred vows to praise God! ⁴  For never again ⁵  will the wicked ⁶  Assyrians ⁷  invade ⁸  you, they ⁹  have been completely destroyed.”

You must celebrate the Festival of Temporary Shelters ¹  for seven days, at the time of the grain and grape harvest. ² 

The entire assembly then decided to celebrate for seven more days; so they joyfully celebrated for seven more days.

You will celebrate all the good things that the Lord your God has given you and your family, ¹  along with the Levites and the resident foreigners among you.

Hezekiah sent messages throughout Israel and Judah; he even wrote letters to Ephraim and Manasseh, summoning them to come to the Lord’s temple in Jerusalem ¹  and observe a Passover celebration for the Lord God of Israel.

Then all who survive from all the nations that came to attack Jerusalem will go up annually to worship the King, the Lord who rules over all, and to observe the Feast of Tabernacles. ¹ 

They will talk about the fame of your great kindness, ¹  and sing about your justice. ² 

“When a foreigner lives ¹  with you and wants to observe the Passover to the Lord, all his males must be circumcised, ²  and then he may approach and observe it, and he will be like one who is born in the land ³  – but no uncircumcised person may eat of it.

“‘On ¹  the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you gather in the produce of the land, you must celebrate a pilgrim festival of the Lord for seven days. On the first day is a complete rest and on the eighth day is complete rest.

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 

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 

“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.

“‘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.

Observe the month Abib ¹  and keep the Passover to the Lord your God, for in that month ²  he ³  brought you out of Egypt by night.

So all the people departed to eat and drink and to share their food ¹  with others ²  and to enjoy tremendous joy, ³  for they had gained insight in the matters that had been made known to them.

They may observe it on the fourteenth day of the second month ¹  at twilight; they are to eat it with bread made without yeast and with bitter herbs.

For we rejoice whenever we are weak, but you are strong. And we pray for this: that you may become fully qualified. ¹