Exodus 23
1“Do not spread a false report. Do not join your hand with the wicked to help them by being a malicious witness.
2“Do not follow the majority to do evil. Do not testify in a lawsuit and go along with the majority in perverting justice.
3Do not favor a poor man in his lawsuit.
4“If you meet your enemy’s ox or his donkey going astray, you must return, yes, return it to him.
5“If you see the donkey of one who hates you fallen down under his burden, do not refrain from raising it. You must raise, yes, raise it up with him.
6“Do not pervert the justice due your poor people in their lawsuits.
7Keep far away from a false charge, and do not kill the innocent and righteous, for I will not justify the wicked.
8Do not take a bribe, because a bribe blinds those who have sight and perverts the words of the righteous.
9“Do not oppress a foreigner, because you know how a foreigner feels, since you were foreigners in the land of Egypt.
10“For six years you are to sow your land and will gather in its produce,
11but the seventh year you are to let it rest and leave it alone so that the poor of your people may eat, and what they leave the animals of the field may eat. You are to do the same with your vineyard and with your olive grove.
12“Six days you are to do your work and on the seventh day you are to rest so that your ox and your donkey can rest, and the son of your slave girl and the sojourner can be refreshed.
13“Pay attention to all that I have said to you, and do not invoke the name of other gods, nor let it be heard on your lips.
14“You are to celebrate a feast to me three times a year.
15You are to celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Seven days you are to eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, at the time appointed in the month Abib (for in it you came out from Egypt). And no one is to appear before me empty-handed.
16And also celebrate the Feast of Harvest, the firstfruits of your labor, of what you sow in the field. And also the Feast of Ingathering at the end of the year, when you gather in your labors out of the field.
17Three times in the year all your males are to appear before the face of the Lord Yahweh.
18“Do not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread, nor is the fat of my feast to remain all night until the morning.
19“The best of the firstfruits of your ground you are to bring into the house of Yahweh your God. “You must not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.
20“Behold, I am going to send an angel before you to guard you on the road and to bring you into the place that I have prepared.
21Pay attention to him and listen to his voice; do not be rebellious against him, for he will not pardon your disobedience, for my name is in him.
22But if you listen, yes, listen to his voice and do all that I speak, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and be an adversary to your adversaries.
23For my angel will go before you and bring you to the Amorite, the Hittite, the Perizzite, the Canaanite, the Hivite and the Jebusite, and I will wipe them out.
24You must not bow down to their gods nor serve them, nor do according to their worship practices, but you must tear, yes, tear them down, and break, yes, break in pieces their sacred standing-stones.
25You are to serve Yahweh your God, and he will bless your bread and your water, and I will take sickness away from your midst.
26No one will miscarry or be barren in your land; I will fulfill the number of your days.
27“I will send my terror before you and will throw into a panic all the people that you come to, and I will make all your enemies turn their backs to you.
28I will send the hornet before you that 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, otherwise, the land would become desolate and the animals of the field would multiply against you.
30Little by little I will drive them out from before you until you have increased in number and inherited the land.
31I will set your boundaries from the Reed Sea to the sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness to the Euphrates River, for I will give the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and you are to drive them out before you.
32Do not make a covenant with them or with their gods.
33They must not live in your land, otherwise they will make you sin against me. Indeed, you will serve their gods, and indeed, it will be a snare to you.”