-
23:1 "You shall not bear a false report; do not join your hand with a wicked man to be a malicious witness. 23:2 "You shall not follow a multitude in doing evil, nor shall you testify in a dispute so as to turn aside after a multitude in order to pervert [justice]; 23:3 nor shall you be partial to a poor man in his dispute. 23:4 "If you meet your enemy's ox or his donkey wandering away, you shall surely return it to him. 23:5 "If you see the donkey of one who hates you lying [helpless] under its load, you shall refrain from leaving it to him, you shall surely release [it] with him. 23:6 "You shall not pervert the justice [due] to your needy [brother] in his dispute. 23:7 "Keep far from a false charge, and do not kill the innocent or the righteous, for I will not acquit the guilty. 23:8 "And you shall not take a bribe, for a bribe blinds the clear-sighted and subverts the cause of the just. 23:9 "And you shall not oppress a stranger, since you yourselves know the feelings of a stranger, for you [also] were strangers in the land of Egypt. 23:10 "And you shall sow your land for six years and gather in its yield, 23:11 but [on] the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, so that the needy of your people may eat; and whatever they leave the beast of the field may eat. You are to do the same with your vineyard [and] your olive grove. 23:12 "Six days you are to do your work, but on the seventh day you shall cease [from labor] in order that your ox and your donkey may rest, and the son of your female slave, as well as your stranger, may refresh themselves. 23:13 "Now concerning everything which I have said to you, be on your guard; and do not mention the name of other gods, nor let [them] be heard from your mouth. 23:14 "Three times a year you shall celebrate a feast to Me. 23:15 "You shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread; for seven days you are to eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, at the appointed time in the month Abib, for in it you came out of Egypt. And none shall appear before Me empty-handed. 23:16 "Also [you shall observe] the Feast of the Harvest [of] the first fruits of your labors [from] what you sow in the field; also the Feast of the Ingathering at the end of the year when you gather in [the fruit of] your labors from the field. 23:17 "Three times a year all your males shall appear before the Lord God. 23:18 "You shall not offer the blood of My sacrifice with leavened bread; nor is the fat of My feast to remain overnight until morning. 23:19 "You shall bring the choice first fruits of your soil into the house of the LORD your God. You are not to boil a kid in the milk of its mother. 23:20 "Behold, I am going to send an angel before you to guard you along the way, and to bring you into the place which I have prepared. 23:21 "Be on your guard before him and obey his voice; do not be rebellious toward him, for he will not pardon your transgression, since My name is in him. 23:22 "But if you will truly obey his voice and do all that I say, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries. 23:23 "For My angel will go before you and bring you in to [the land of] the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hivites and the Jebusites; and I will completely destroy them. 23:24 "You shall not worship their gods, nor serve them, nor do according to their deeds; but you shall utterly overthrow them, and break their [sacred] pillars in pieces. 23:25 "But you shall serve the LORD your God, and He will bless your bread and your water; and I will remove sickness from your midst. 23:26 "There shall be no one miscarrying or barren in your land; I will fulfill the number of your days. 23:27 "I will send My terror ahead of you, and throw into confusion all the people among whom you come, and I will make all your enemies turn [their] backs to you. 23:28 "And I will send hornets ahead of you, that they may drive out the Hivites, the Canaanites, and the Hittites before you. 23:29 "I will not drive them out before you in a single year, that the land may not become desolate, and the beasts of the field become too numerous for you. 23:30 "I will drive them out before you little by little, until you become fruitful and take possession of the land. 23:31 "And I will fix your boundary from the Red Sea to the sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness to the River [Euphrates]; for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and you will drive them out before you. 23:32 "You shall make no covenant with them or with their gods. 23:33 "They shall not live in your land, lest they make you sin against Me; for [if] you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare to you."