‘The tenth day of this seventh month is the Day of Atonement. You are to hold a sacred assembly and practise self-denial; you are to present a food offering to the Lord.
‘Once a year Aaron is to perform the atonement ceremony for the altar. Throughout your generations he is to perform the atonement ceremony for it once a year, with the blood of the sin offering for atonement on the horns. The altar is especially holy to the Lord.’
He will bathe his body with water in a holy place and put on his clothes. Then he must go out and sacrifice his burnt offering and the people’s burnt offering; he will make atonement for himself and for the people.
‘When he slaughters the male goat for the people’s sin offering and brings its blood inside the curtain, he will do the same with its blood as he did with the bull’s blood: he is to sprinkle it against the mercy seat and in front of it.
‘Then I will pour out a spirit , of grace and prayer on the house of David and the residents of Jerusalem, and they will look at me whom they pierced. They will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child and weep bitterly for him as one weeps for a firstborn.
Will the fast I choose be like this: A day for a person to deny himself, to bow his head like a reed, and to spread out sackcloth and ashes? Will you call this a fast and a day acceptable to the Lord?
I proclaimed a fast by the River Ahava, so that we might humble ourselves before our God and ask him for a safe journey for us, our dependents, and all our possessions.
Then you are to sound a ram’s horn loudly in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month; you will sound it throughout your land on the Day of Atonement.
He will make atonement for the most holy place in this way for all their sins because of the Israelites’ impurities and rebellious acts. He will do the same for the tent of meeting that remains among them, because it is surrounded by their impurities.