Exodus 23

¹You shall not carry a false report; do not set your hand with a wicked man to be a witness of violence.

²You shall not follow a crowd to do evil, nor shall you testify in a lawsuit by siding with the many to pervert justice.

³And a poor man you shall not show partiality to in his dispute.

⁴If you come across the ox of your enemy or his donkey going astray, you shall surely bring it back to him.

⁵When you see the donkey of one who hates you lying under its burden, and you would hold back from helping him, you shall surely help with him.

⁶You shall not pervert the justice of your needy in his lawsuit.

⁷Keep far from a false matter; and the innocent and the righteous do not kill, for I will not justify the wicked.

⁸And a bribe you shall not take, for a bribe blinds the clear-sighted and perverts the words of the righteous.

⁹And a sojourner you shall not oppress, for you yourselves know the soul of the sojourner, for sojourners you were in the land of Egypt.

¹⁰And for six years you shall sow your land and gather its produce,

¹¹but in the seventh you shall let it rest and lie fallow, so that the needy of your people may eat; and what they leave the wild animals may eat. You shall do the same with your vineyard and your olive grove.

¹²Six days you shall do your work, and on the seventh day you shall cease, so that your ox and your donkey may rest, and the son of your maidservant and the sojourner may be refreshed.

¹³In all that I have said to you, take heed; and the name of other gods you shall not invoke, nor shall it be heard from your mouth.

¹⁴Three times in the year you shall hold a feast for me.

¹⁵The Feast of Unleavened Bread you shall keep; seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, at the appointed time of the month of Abib, for in it you came out of Egypt; and none shall appear before me empty-handed.

¹⁶and the Feast of Harvest, the firstfruits of your labors that you sow in the field; and the Feast of Ingathering at the going out of the year, when you gather your labors from the field.

¹⁷Three times in the year all your males shall appear before the Lord YHWH.

¹⁸You shall not sacrifice the blood of my sacrifice with leaven, nor shall the fat of my feast remain until morning.

¹⁹The first of the firstfruits of your soil you shall bring to the house of the LORD your God. You shall not boil a kid in its mother's milk.

²⁰Behold, I am sending a messenger before you to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place that I have prepared.

²¹Pay attention to him and obey his voice; do not rebel against him, for he will not pardon your transgression, for my name is in him.

²²But if you will truly heed his voice and do all that I speak, then I will be hostile to your enemies and will harass your harassers.

²³For my angel will go before you and bring you in to the Amorite and the Hittite and the Perizzite and the Canaanite, the Hivite and the Jebusite, and I will cut them off.

²⁴You shall not bow down to their gods, and you shall not serve them, and you shall not do according to their deeds; but you shall utterly overthrow them and smash their pillars to pieces.

²⁵And you shall serve the LORD your God, and he will bless your bread and your water, and I will remove sickness from your midst.

²⁶There shall be none that miscarries or is barren in your land; the number of your days I will fill.

²⁷My terror I will send before you, and I will throw into confusion all the people whom you come against, and I will make all your enemies turn their backs to you.

²⁸And I will send the hornet before you, and it 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 desolation and the wild animals of the field multiply against you.

³⁰Little by little I will drive them out from before you, until you become fruitful and inherit the land.

³¹And I will set your border from the Sea of Reeds to the Sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness to the River, for I will give the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and you shall drive them out before you.

³²You shall not cut a covenant with them or with their gods.

³³They shall not dwell in your land, lest they cause you to sin against me; for if you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare to you.