Question XXV. How long was labor given to this ceremony?

To define either the hours, or the days, during which they lingered on these mountains and completed that ceremony, I indeed cannot; yet [that] the days were several appears from these [considerations]. First: Because so many and so vast stones had to be dug out, for the altar and for the inscription of the laws. Secondly: Because so many holocausts and so many peace-victims were offered. Thirdly: Because, in the eating of those peace-victims and the sacred feasts, at least a second and a third day was set aside by the whole people. For in Deut. 27, v. 6, it is said: “Thou shalt immolate peace-offering victims, and shalt eat there and feast before the Lord thy God.” Fourthly: Lime [had] to be prepared, and with it the Deuteronomic stones [had] to be smeared and polished; but before these, coated [with lime] and polished, had dried [enough] to admit the writing, one or another day had to be waited — yet not more, because these [things] were being done now in high summer, as [is] manifest from the time of the Jordan-crossing, the Passover, and the destruction of Jericho, expounded above. Fifthly: The inscription easily claimed one day for itself. Sixthly: What, finally, of the recitation of the law itself, and the pronouncing of the blessings and detestations? And from here all returned to the camp at Galgala [Gilgal].