Ex 23, 12 On the seventh day you must rest

(Ex 23, 12) On the seventh day you must rest

[12] "For six days you may do your work, but on the seventh day you must rest, that your ox and your ass may also have rest, and that the son of your maidservant and the alien may be refreshed.

(CCC 2172) God's action is the model for human action. If God "rested and was refreshed" on the seventh day, man too ought to "rest" and should let others, especially the poor, "be refreshed" (Ex 31:17; cf. 23:12). The sabbath brings everyday work to a halt and provides a respite. It is a day of protest against the servitude of work and the worship of money (Cf. Neh 13:15-22; 2 Chr 36:21). (CCC 2175) Sunday is expressly distinguished from the sabbath which it follows chronologically every week; for Christians its ceremonial observance replaces that of the sabbath. In Christ's Passover, Sunday fulfills the spiritual truth of the Jewish sabbath and announces man's eternal rest in God. For worship under the Law prepared for the mystery of Christ, and what was done there prefigured some aspects of Christ (Cf. 1 Cor 10:11): Those who lived according to the old order of things have come to a new hope, no longer keeping the sabbath, but the Lord's Day, in which our life is blessed by him and by his death (St. Ignatius of Antioch, Ad Magn. 9, 1: SCh 10, 88).