Be imitators of me, ¹  brothers and sisters, ²  and watch carefully those who are living this way, just as you have us as an example.

In the tent of meeting ¹  outside the curtain that is before the testimony, Aaron and his sons are to arrange it from evening ²  to morning before the Lord. This is to be a lasting ordinance among the Israelites for generations to come. ³ 

“Tell the Israelites, ‘In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you must have a complete rest, a memorial announced by loud horn blasts, ¹  a holy assembly.

So be sure to do them, because this will testify of your wise understanding ¹  to the people who will learn of all these statutes and say, “Indeed, this great nation is a very wise ²  people.”

Then Moses called all the people of Israel together and said to them: ¹  “Listen, Israel, to the statutes and ordinances that I am about to deliver to you today; learn them and be careful to keep them!

Now these are the commandments, ¹  statutes, and ordinances that the Lord your God instructed me to teach you so that you may carry them out in the land where you are headed ² 

Pay attention, Israel, and be careful to do this so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in number ¹  – as the Lord, God of your ancestors, ²  said to you, you will have a land flowing with milk and honey.

You must keep carefully all these commandments ¹  I am giving ²  you today so that you may live, increase in number, ³  and go in and occupy the land that the Lord promised to your ancestors. ⁴ 

and then you are careful to observe all these commandments ¹  I am giving ²  you today (namely, to love the Lord your God and to always walk in his ways), then you must add three more cities ³  to these three.

This law scroll must not leave your lips! ¹  You must memorize it ²  day and night so you can carefully obey ³  all that is written in it. Then you will prosper ⁴  and be successful. ⁵ 

I will not make Israel again leave the land I gave to their ancestors, ¹  provided that they carefully obey all I commanded them, the whole law my servant Moses ordered them to obey.”

Therefore, because of the account found in this letter and what they had faced in this regard and what had happened to them, the Jews established as binding on themselves, their descendants, and all who joined their company that they should observe these two days without fail, just as written and at the appropriate time on an annual basis.

“You have surely noticed what these people are saying, haven’t you? They are saying, ¹  ‘The Lord has rejected the two families of Israel and Judah ²  that he chose.’ So they have little regard that my people will ever again be a nation. ³ 

Then some of the Pharisees began to say, ¹  “This man is not from God, because he does not observe ²  the Sabbath.” ³  But others said, “How can a man who is a sinner perform ⁴  such miraculous signs?” Thus there was a division ⁵  among them.

For as I went around and observed closely your objects of worship, ¹  I even found an altar with this inscription: ²  ‘To an unknown god.’ Therefore what you worship without knowing it, ³  this I proclaim to you.

For all who ¹  rely on doing the works of the law are under a curse, because it is written, “Cursed is everyone who does not keep on doing everything written in the book of the law.” ² 

When Joseph came to them in the morning, he saw that they were looking depressed. ¹ 

When your children ask you, ‘What does this ceremony mean to you?’ ¹  –

They observed a time of fasting and put Naboth in front of the people.

But they ¹  pay no attention; instead they observe their earlier practices.