k and
Goat--Reading--Ceremonial--Rules and Exceptions--Repentance and
Atonement.

Chapter I

1. Seven days before the Day of Atonement the High Priest was removed from
his house to the chamber(192) Parhedrin, and the council prepared for him
another priest,(193) lest there happen to him any defilement. R. Judah
said, "they prepared also another wife, lest his wife die"; as is
said,(194) "And he shall atone for himself and for his house"; for his
house, _i.e._, for his wife. The Sages said to him, "if so, there is no
end to the matter."

2. All these seven days, he (the high priest) sprinkled the blood, burned
the incense, and trimmed the lamps, and offered the head and the foot. On
the remainder of all the days, if he wished to offer, he offered; since
the high priest first offered part, and first took part (in the
sacrifices).

3. The elders from the elders of the great Sanhedrin delivered to him, and
read before him, the ceremonial of the day; and they said to him, "My Lord
High Priest, read with thy mouth, perchance thou hast forgotten, or
perchance thou hast not learned."(195) On the eve of the day of atonement,
toward dawn, they placed him in the eastern gate (of the Temple), and they
caused to pass before him bullocks, rams, and lambs, that he might be
skilled and expert in his ministry.

4. All the seven days they did not withhold from him food and drink; the
eve of the day of atonement, with the beginning of darkness, they did not
permit him to eat much, since food induces sleep.

5. The elders of the great Sanhedrin delivered him to the elders of the
priesthood, who brought him to the upper chamber of the house Abtinas. And
they administered to him the oath,(196) and they left him and departed.
And they said to him, "My Lord High Priest, we are ambassadors of the
great Sanhedrin, and thou art our ambassador, and the ambassador of the
great Sanhedrin. We adjure thee by Him, whose Name dwells in this house,
that thou wilt not change aught of all which we have said to thee." He
went apart and wept. They went apart and wept.(197)

6. If he were a learned man, he expounded; but if not, the disciples of
the learned expounded before him. If he were skilled in reading, he read;
but if not, they read before him. "And in what did they read before him?"
"In Job, and in Ezra, and in Chronicles." Zachariah, the son of Kebutal,
said, "I often read before him in Daniel."

7. If he desired to sleep, the