celebrating holidays

¹⁶Therefore, let no one judge you as concerns food or drink, or a particular feast day, or feast days of new moons, or of Sabbaths.

⁵For one person discerns one age from the next. But another discerns unto every age. Let each one increase according to his own mind. ⁶He who understands the age, understands for the Lord. And he who eats, eats for the Lord; for he gives thanks to God. And he who does not eat, does not eat for the Lord, and he gives thanks to God.

¹But accept those who are weak in faith, without disputing about ideas. ²For one person believes that he may eat all things, but if another is weak, let him eat plants. ³He who eats should not despise him who does not eat. And he who does not eat should not judge him who eats. For God has accepted him. ⁴Who are you to judge the servant of another? He stands or falls by his own Lord. But he shall stand. For God is able to make him stand. ⁵For one person discerns one age from the next. But another discerns unto every age. Let each one increase according to his own mind. ⁶He who understands the age, understands for the Lord. And he who eats, eats for the Lord; for he gives thanks to God. And he who does not eat, does not eat for the Lord, and he gives thanks to God.

¹⁴My soul hates your days of proclamation and your solemnities. They have become bothersome to me. I labor to endure them. ¹⁵And so, when you extend your hands, I will avert my eyes from you. And when you multiply your prayers, I will not heed you. For your hands are full of blood.

¹Listen to the word that the Lord has spoken concerning you, O house of Israel. ²Thus says the Lord: “Do not choose to learn according to the ways of the Gentiles. And do not be willing to dread the signs of heaven, which the Gentiles fear. ³For the laws of the people are empty. For the work of the hand of the craftsman has cut a tree from the forest with an axe. ⁴He has adorned it with silver and gold. He has put it together with nail and hammer, so that it will not fall apart.

²⁰And so Mordecai wrote down all these things and sent them, composed in letters, to the Jews who were staying in all the king’s provinces, as much to those in nearby places as to those far away, ²¹so that they would accept the fourteenth and fifteenth day of the month Adar for holy days, and always, at the return of the year, would celebrate them with sacred esteem. ²²For on those days, the Jews vindicated themselves of their enemies, and their mourning and sorrow were turned into mirth and joy, so that these would be days of feasting and gladness, in which they would send one another portions of their feasts, and would grant gifts to the poor.

²⁹When the Lord your God will have abolished before your face the nations, which you shall enter so as to possess them, and when you will possess them and live in their land, ³⁰be careful that you do not imitate them, after they have been overturned at your arrival, and that you do not seek their ceremonies, saying: ‘Just as these nations have worshipped their gods, so also will I worship.’ ³¹You shall not act in like manner toward the Lord your God. For they have done to their gods all the abominations that the Lord spurns, offering their sons and daughters, and burning them with fire. ³²What I command to you, this only shall you do, for the Lord. You may neither add nor subtract anything.”

³But responding, he said to them: “And why do you transgress the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? For God said:

⁸See to it that no one deceives you through philosophy and empty falsehoods, as found in the traditions of men, in accord with the influences of the world, and not in accord with Christ.

¹⁰You serve the days, and months, and times, and years. ¹¹I am afraid for you, lest perhaps I may have labored in vain among you.

¹⁰You serve the days, and months, and times, and years.