The Feast of Tabernacles

The family heads, priests, and Levites gather to study with Ezra and find the command to dwell in booths during the seventh-month feast. They then spread the instruction through Jerusalem and the towns.

O¹³n the second day of the month, the heads of all the families, along with the priests and Levites, gathered around Ezra the scribe to study the words of the Law. ¹⁴And they found written in the Law, which the LORD had commanded through Moses, that the Israelites were to dwell in booths during the feast of the seventh month, ¹⁵and that they should proclaim this message and spread it throughout their towns and in Jerusalem, saying, “Go out to the hill country and bring back branches of olive, wild olive, myrtle, palm, and other leafy trees, to make booths, as it is written.”

The people gather branches, build booths across the city, and live in them as commanded. Their celebration is marked by great rejoicing and by Ezra's daily reading of the Law through the full feast.

¹⁶And the people went out, brought back branches, and made booths on their own rooftops, in their courtyards, in the courts of the house of God, and in the squares by the Water Gate and by the Gate of Ephraim. ¹⁷The whole assembly that had returned from exile made booths and lived in them. From the days of Joshua son of Nun until that day, the Israelites had not celebrated like this. And there was great rejoicing. ¹⁸Day after day, from the first day to the last, Ezra read from the Book of the Law of God. The Israelites kept the feast for seven days, and on the eighth day they held an assembly, according to the ordinance.