On this day you are not to do any work, for it is the Day of Atonement, when atonement is made for you before the LORD your God.
Parallel translations
- WEB You shall do no kind of work in that same day; for it is a day of atonement, to make atonement for you before Yahweh your God.
- KJV And ye shall do no work in that same day: for it is a day of atonement, to make an atonement for you before the LORD your God.
- NKJV And you shall do no work on that same day, for it is the Day of Atonement, to make atonement for you before the Lord your God.
- NASB You shall not do any work on this very day, for it is a Day of Atonement, to make atonement on your behalf before the Lord your God.
- NLT Do no work during that entire day because it is the Day of Atonement, when offerings of purification are made for you, making you right with the Lord your God.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
No work at all is to be done on the Day of Atonement, for it is the day atonement is made before Yahweh.
Overview
The total prohibition of work set this day apart as wholly devoted to atonement. By resting completely, Israel acknowledged that reconciliation with God was His work, not theirs. This rest from labor on the day of atonement beautifully foreshadows the gospel, in which we rest in Christ's finished work for our forgiveness (Hebrews 4:10).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 12
- Zech 3:9See the stone I have set before Joshua; on that one stone are seven eyes. Behold, I will engrave on it an inscription, declares the LORD of Hosts, and I will remove the iniquity of this land in a single day.
- Lev 16:34This is to be a permanent statute for you, to make atonement once a year for the Israelites because of all their sins.” And all this was done as the LORD had commanded Moses.
- Dan 9:24Seventy weeks are decreed for your people and your holy city to stop their transgression, to put an end to sin, to make atonement for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy Place.
- Heb 9:26Otherwise, Christ would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But now He has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of Himself.
- Heb 9:12He did not enter by the blood of goats and calves, but He entered the Most Holy Place once for all by His own blood, thus securing eternal redemption.
- Heb 10:10And by that will, we have been sanctified through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
- Heb 10:14because by a single offering He has made perfect for all time those who are being sanctified.
- Rom 5:10–11For if, when we were enemies of God, we were reconciled to Him through the death of His Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through His life!
- 1 Jn 2:2He Himself is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.
- 1 Jn 4:10And love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins.
- 1 Jn 5:6This is the One who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ—not by water alone, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who testifies to this, because the Spirit is the truth.
- Isa 53:10Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush Him and to cause Him to suffer; and when His soul is made a guilt offering, He will see His offspring, He will prolong His days, and the good pleasure of the LORD will prosper in His hand.
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Christ at the center
Every sacrifice, every priest, and every day of atonement points beyond itself to the one perfect offering and the great High Priest who, by his own blood, makes the unclean holy once for all.
How Leviticus 23:28 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.