Sukkot Day 1 & 2

This translation was taken from the JPS Tanakh

Day 1

Zechariah 14:1-21

Chapter 14

¹ Lo, a day of the Lord is coming when your spoil shall be divided in your very midst! ² For I will gather all the nations to Jerusalem for war: The city shall be captured, the houses plundered, and the women violated; and a part of the city shall go into exile. But the rest of the population shall not be uprooted from the city.

³ Then the Lord will come forth and make war on those nations as He is wont to make war on a day of battle. ⁴ On that day, He will set His feet on the Mount of Olives, near Jerusalem on the east; and the Mount of Olives shall split across from east to west, and one part of the Mount shall shift to the north and the other to the south, a huge gorge. ⁵ And the Valley in the Hills shall be stopped up, for the Valley of the Hills shall reach only to Azal; it shall be stopped up as it was stopped up as a result of the earthquake in the days of King Uzziah of Judah. — And the Lord my God, with all the holy beings, will come to you. ⁶ In that day, there shall be neither sunlight nor cold moonlight, ⁷ but there shall be a continuous day — only the Lord knows when — of neither day nor night, and there shall be light at eventide.

⁸ In that day, fresh water shall flow from Jerusalem, part of it to the Eastern Sea and part to the Western Sea, throughout the summer and winter.

⁹ And the Lord shall be king over all the earth; in that day there shall be one Lord with one name.

¹⁰ Then the whole country shall become like the Arabah, from Geba to Rimmon south of Jerusalem. The latter, however, shall perch high up where it is, and shall be inhabited from the Gate of Benjamin to the site of the Old Gate, down to the Corner Gate, and from the Tower of Hananel to the king’s winepresses. ¹¹Never again shall destruction be decreed, and Jerusalem shall dwell secure.

¹² As for those peoples that warred against Jerusalem, the Lord will smite them with this plague: Their flesh shall rot away while they stand on their feet; their eyes shall rot away in their sockets; and their tongues shall rot away in their mouths.

¹³ In that day, a great panic from the Lord shall fall upon them, and everyone shall snatch at the hand of another, and everyone shall raise his hand against everyone else’s hand. ¹⁴ Judah shall join the fighting in Jerusalem, and the wealth of all the nations roundabout — vast quantities of gold, silver, and clothing — shall be gathered in.

¹⁵ The same plague shall strike the horses, the mules, the camels, and the asses; the plague shall affect all the animals in those camps.

¹⁶ All who survive of all those nations that came up against Jerusalem shall make a pilgrimage year by year to bow low to the King Lord of Hosts and to observe the Feast of Booths. ¹⁷ Any of the earth’s communities that does not make the pilgrimage to Jerusalem to bow low to the King Lord of Hosts shall receive no rain. ¹⁸ However, if the community of Egypt does not make this pilgrimage, it shall not be visited by the same affliction with which the Lord will strike the other nations that do not come up to observe the Feast of Booths. ¹⁹ Such shall be the punishment of Egypt and of all other nations that do not come up to observe the Feast of Booths.

²⁰ In that day, even the bells on the horses shall be inscribed “Holy to the Lord.” The metal pots in the House of the Lord shall be like the basins before the altar; ²¹ indeed, every metal pot in Jerusalem and in Judah shall be holy to the Lord of Hosts. And all those who sacrifice shall come and take of these to boil [their sacrificial meat] in; in that day there shall be no more traders in the House of the Lord of Hosts.

Day 2

I Kings 8:2-21

² All the men of Israel gathered before King Solomon at the Feast, in the month of Ethanim — that is, the seventh month. ³ When all the elders of Israel had come, the priests lifted the Ark ⁴ and carried up the Ark of the Lord. Then the priests and the Levites brought the Tent of Meeting and all the holy vessels that were in the Tent. ⁵ Meanwhile, King Solomon and the whole community of Israel, who were assembled with him before the Ark, were sacrificing sheep and oxen in such abundance that they could not be numbered or counted.

⁶ The priests brought the Ark of the Lord’s Covenant to its place underneath the wings of the cherubim, in the Shrine of the House, in the Holy of Holies; ⁷ for the cherubim had their wings spread out over the place of the Ark, so that the cherubim shielded the Ark and its poles from above. ⁸ The poles projected so that the ends of the poles were visible in the sanctuary in front of the Shrine, but they could not be seen outside; and there they remain to this day. ⁹ There was nothing inside the Ark but the two tablets of stone which Moses placed there at Horeb, when the Lord made [a covenant] with the Israelites after their departure from the land of Egypt.

¹⁰ When the priests came out of the sanctuary — for the cloud had filled the House of the Lord ¹¹ and the priests were not able to remain and perform the service because of the cloud, for the Presence of the Lord filled the House of the Lord — ¹² then Solomon declared:

“The Lord has chosen
To abide in a thick cloud:
¹³ I have now built for You
A stately House,
A place where You
May dwell forever.”

¹⁴ Then, with the whole congregation of Israel standing, the king faced about and blessed the whole congregation of Israel. ¹⁵ He said: “Praised be the Lord, the God of Israel, who has fulfilled with deeds the promise He made to my father David. For He said, ¹⁶ ‘Ever since I brought My people Israel out of Egypt, I have not chosen a city among all the tribes of Israel for building a House where My name might abide; but I have chosen David to rule My people Israel.’

¹⁷ “Now my father David had intended to build a House for the name of the Lord, the God of Israel. ¹⁸ But the Lord said to my father David, ‘As regards your intention to build a House for My name, you did right to have that intention. ¹⁹ However, you shall not build the House yourself; instead, your son, the issue of your loins, shall build the House for My name.’

²⁰ “And the Lord has fulfilled the promise that He made: I have succeeded my father David and have ascended the throne of Israel, as the Lord promised. I have built the House for the name of the Lord, the God of Israel; ²¹ and I have set a place there for the Ark, containing the covenant which the Lord made with our fathers when He brought them out from the land of Egypt.”

Taken from Tanakh, The Holy Scriptures, (Philadelphia, Jerusalem: Jewish Publication Society) 1985.
Used by permission of The Jewish Publication Society. Copyright © 1962, 1992
Third Edition by the Jewish Publication Society.
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