as the time when the Jews gave themselves rest from their enemies – the month when their trouble was turned to happiness and their mourning to a holiday. These were to be days of banqueting, happiness, sending gifts to one another, and providing for the poor.

And during the seven days of the feast he will provide as a burnt offering to the Lord seven bulls and seven rams, all without blemish, on each of the seven days, and a male goat daily for a sin offering.

In the seventh month, on the fifteenth day of the month, at the feast, ¹  he will make the same provisions for the sin offering, burnt offering, and grain offering, and for the olive oil, for the seven days.

Just before the Passover feast, Jesus knew that his time ¹  had come to depart ²  from this world to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he now loved them to the very end. ³ 

Jeroboam inaugurated a festival on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, ¹  like the festival celebrated in Judah. ²  On the altar in Bethel he offered sacrifices to the calves he had made. ³  In Bethel he also appointed priests for the high places he had made.

They spent three days feasting ¹  there with David, for their relatives had given them provisions.

Queen Vashti ¹  also gave a banquet for the women in King Ahasuerus’ royal palace.

They are filled with food from your house, and you allow them to drink from the river of your delicacies.

“The kingdom of heaven can be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son.

Then he said to his slaves, ‘The wedding is ready, but the ones who had been invited were not worthy.

So go into the main streets and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.’

But when you host an elaborate meal, ¹  invite the poor, the crippled, ²  the lame, and ³  the blind. ⁴ 

“There was a rich man who dressed in purple ¹  and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously ²  every day.

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 

“‘Also, on the day of the first fruits, when you bring a new grain offering to the Lord during your Feast of Weeks, you are to have a holy assembly. You must do no ordinary work.

So he threw a big banquet ¹  for them and they ate and drank. Then he sent them back ²  to their master. After that no Syrian raiding parties again invaded the land of Israel.

Ezra ¹  read in the book of the law of God day by day, from the first day to the last. ²  They observed the festival for seven days, and on the eighth day they held an assembly ³  as was required. ⁴ 

This is why the Jews who are in the rural country – those who live in rural cities – set aside the fourteenth day of the month of Adar as a holiday for happiness, banqueting, holiday, and sending gifts to one another.

Two days before the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the chief priests and the experts in the law ¹  were trying to find a way ²  to arrest Jesus ³  by stealth and kill him.

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.