The Bible

Exodus Chapter 23

¹"Don't spread a unfounded report. Don't join your hand with the wicked to be a malicious witness.

²"Don't follow a crowd to do evil. Don't testify in court to side with a multitude to pervert justice. ³Don't favor a poor man in his cause.

⁴"If you meet your enemy's ox or his donkey going astray, you must surely bring it back to him again. ⁵If you see a donkey [owned by] someone who hates you fallen down under its burden, don't leave him. Surely help him with it.

⁶"Don't deny justice to your poor people in their lawsuits.

⁷"Keep far from a false charge, and don't kill the innocent and righteous; for I will not justify the wicked.

⁸"Take no bribe, for a bribe blinds those who have sight and perverts the words of the righteous.

⁹"Don't oppress a foreigner, for you know the heart of a foreigner, since you were foreigners in the land of Egypt.

¹⁰"For six years sow your land, and gather in its produce, ¹¹but let it rest and lie fallow for the seventh year, so the poor of your people may eat; and what they leave the animal of the field may eat. Treat your vineyard and your olive grove in the same way.

¹²"do your work for six days and on the seventh day rest, so that your ox and your donkey may have rest, and the son of your handmaid, and the foreigner may be refreshed.

¹³"Be careful to do all things that I have said to you; and don't invoke the name of other gods or even let them be heard from your mouth.

¹⁴"Observe a feast to me three times a year. ¹⁵Observe the feast of unleavened bread. Eat unleavened bread for seven days at the time appointed in the month Abib (for in it you left Egypt), as I commanded you. Let no one appear before me empty-handed. ¹⁶And the feast of harvest, the first fruits of your work, which you sow in the field; and the feast of ingathering, at the end of the year, when you gather in your produce from the field. ¹⁷Three times a year all your males must appear before the Lord Yahweh.

¹⁸"Do not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread, nor let the fat of my feast remain all night until the morning.

¹⁹Bring the first of the first fruits of your ground into Yahweh your God's house. "Don't boil a young goat in its mother's milk.

²⁰"Behold, I send an angel before you, to keep you along the way, and to bring you into the place which I have prepared. ²¹Pay attention to him, and listen to his voice. Don't provoke him, for he will not pardon your disobedience, for my name is in him. ²²But if you indeed listen to his voice, and do all that I speak, then I will be an enemy to your enemies, and an adversary to your adversaries. ²³For my angel will go before you, and bring you in to the Amorite, the Hittite, the Perizzite, the Canaanite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite; and I will cut them off. ²⁴Don't bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor follow their practices, but utterly overthrow them and demolish their pillars. ²⁵Serve Yahweh your God, and he will bless your bread and your water; and I will take sickness away from among you. ²⁶No one will miscarry or be barren in your land. I will fulfill the number of your days. ²⁷I will send my terror before you, and will confuse all the people to whom you come, and I will make all your enemies turn their backs to you. ²⁸I will send the hornet before you, which will drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before you. ²⁹I will not drive them out from before you in one year, lest the land become desolate, and the animals of the field multiply against you. ³⁰Little by little I will drive them out from before you, until you have increased and inherit the land. ³¹I will set your border from the Red Sea even to the sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness to the River; for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand. Drive them out before you. ³²Don't make any covenants with them, nor with their gods. ³³Don't let them live in your land, otherwise they might make you sin against me, for if you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare to you."