Common English Bible

Deuteronomy 16:12-22 Common English Bible (CEB)

12. Remember how each of you was a slave in Egypt, so follow these regulations most carefully.

13. Once you have collected the food and drink you need, perform the Festival of Booths for seven days.

14. Celebrate your festival: you, your sons, your daughters, your male and female servants, the Levites, the immigrants, the orphans, and the widows who live in your cities.

15. Seven days you must perform the festival for the Lord your God in the location the Lord selects because the Lord your God will bless you in all you do and in all your work. You will be overjoyed.

16. Three times a year every male among you must appear before the presence of the Lord your God in the location he will select: at the Festival of Unleavened Bread, the Festival of Weeks, and the Festival of Booths. They must not appear before the Lord’s presence empty-handed.

17. Each one should have his gift in hand, in precise measure with the blessing the Lord your God gives you.

18. Appoint judges and officials for each of your tribes in every city that the Lord your God gives you. They must judge the people fairly.

19. Don’t delay justice; don’t show favoritism. Don’t take bribes because bribery blinds the vision of the wise and twists the words of the righteous.

20. Righteousness! Pursue righteousness so that you live long and take possession of the land that the Lord your God is giving you.

21. Don’t plant any tree to serve as a sacred pole next to the altar you make for the Lord your God.

22. Don’t set up any sacred stone either, because the Lord your God hates such things.