Exodus 23 — Justice, Covenant, and Divine Presence

1Thou shalt not take up a false report: put not thy hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness.💡

2Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil; neither shalt thou speak in a cause to turn aside after a multitude to wrest justice:💡

3neither shalt thou favor a poor man in his cause.💡

4If thou meet thine enemy's ox or his ass going astray, thou shalt surely bring it back to him again.💡

5If thou see the ass of him that hateth thee lying under his burden, thou shalt forbear to leave him, thou shalt surely release it with him.💡

6Thou shalt not wrest the justice due to thy poor in his cause.💡

7Keep thee far from a false matter; and the innocent and righteous slay thou not: for I will not justify the wicked.💡

8And thou shalt take no bribe: for a bribe blindeth them that have sight, and perverteth the words of the righteous.💡

9And a sojourner shalt thou not oppress: for ye know the heart of a sojourner, seeing ye were sojourners in the land of Egypt.💡

10And six years thou shalt sow thy land, and shalt gather in the increase thereof:💡

11but the seventh year thou shalt let it rest and lie fallow, that the poor of thy people may eat: and what they leave the beast of the field shall eat. In like manner thou shalt deal with thy vineyard, and with thy oliveyard.💡

12Six days thou shalt do thy work, and on the seventh day thou shalt rest; that thine ox and thine ass may have rest, and the son of thy handmaid, and the sojourner, may be refreshed.💡

13And in all things that I have said unto you take ye heed: and make no mention of the name of other gods, neither let it be heard out of thy mouth.💡

14Three times thou shalt keep a feast unto me in the year.💡

15The feast of unleavened bread shalt thou keep: seven days thou shalt eat unleavened bread, as I commanded thee, at the time appointed in the month Abib (for in it thou camest out from Egypt); and none shall appear before me empty:💡

16and the feast of harvest, the first-fruits of thy labors, which thou sowest in the field: and the feast of ingathering, at the end of the year, when thou gatherest in thy labors out of the field.💡

17Three times in the year all thy males shall appear before the Lord Jehovah.💡

18Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread; neither shall the fat of my feast remain all night until the morning.💡

19The first of the first-fruits of thy ground thou shalt bring into the house of Jehovah thy God. Thou shalt not boil a kid in it mother's milk.💡

20Behold, I send an angel before thee, to keep thee by the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared.💡

21Take ye heed before him, and hearken unto his voice; provoke him not; for he will not pardon your transgression: for my name is in him.💡

22But if thou shalt indeed hearken unto his voice, and do all that I speak; then I will be an enemy unto thine enemies, and an adversary unto thine adversaries.💡

23For mine angel shall go before thee, and bring thee in unto the Amorite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Canaanite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite: and I will cut them off.💡

24Thou shalt not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do after their works; but thou shalt utterly overthrow them, and break in pieces their pillars.💡

25And ye shall serve Jehovah your God, and he will bless thy bread, and thy water; and I will take sickness away from the midst of thee.💡

26There shall none cast her young, nor be barren, in thy land: the number of thy days I will fulfil.💡

27I will send my terror before thee, and will discomfit all the people to whom thou shalt come, and I will make all thine enemies turn their backs unto thee.💡

28And I will send the hornet before thee, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before thee.💡

29I will not drive them out from before thee in one year, lest the land become desolate, and the beasts of the field multiply against thee.💡

30By little and little I will drive them out from before thee, until thou be increased, and inherit the land.💡

31And I will set thy border from the Red Sea even unto the sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness unto the River: for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand; and thou shalt drive them out before thee.💡

32Thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor with their gods.💡

33They shall not dwell in thy land, lest they make thee sin against me; for if thou serve their gods, it will surely be a snare unto thee.💡