Exodus 23

Leeser^{(i) 1} Thou shalt not receive a false report: put not thy hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness. ² Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil; neither shalt thou speak in a cause, to incline after many, to wrest judgment. ³ Neither shalt thou countenance a poor man in his cause. ⁴ If thou meet thy enemy’s ox or his ass going astray, thou shalt surely bring it back to him again. ⁵ If thou see the ass of him that hateth thee lying under his burden, and wouldest forbear to unload him, thou must not do so, but thou shalt surely unload with him. ⁶ Thou shalt not wrest the judgment of thy poor in his cause. ⁷ Keep thyself far from a false speech; and him who hath been declared innocent and righteous thou shalt not slay; for I will not justify the wicked. ⁸ And thou shalt take no bribe; for the bribe blindeth the clear-sighted, and perverteth the words of the righteous. ⁹ And a stranger shalt thou not oppress; for ye know well the spirit of the stranger, seeing ye yourselves were strangers in the land of Egypt. ¹⁰ And six years shalt thou sow thy land, and shalt gather in the fruits thereof; ¹¹ But the seventh year shalt thou let it rest and lie still; that the needy of thy people may eat of it; and what they leave the beasts of the field shall eat: in like manner shalt thou deal with thy vineyard, and with thy olive tree. ¹² Six days shalt thou do thy work, and on the seventh day shalt thou rest; that thy ox and thy ass may repose, and the son of thy hand-maid, and the stranger, may be refreshed. ¹³ And in all things that I have said unto you be on your guard; and of the name of other gods ye shall make no mention, it shall not be heard out of thy mouth. ¹⁴ Three times shalt thou keep a feast unto me in the year. ¹⁵ The feast of unleavened bread shalt thou keep; seven days shalt thou eat unleavened bread, as I commanded thee, in the time appointed of the month of Abib; for in it thou camest out from Egypt: and none shall appear before me empty. ¹⁶ And the feast of harvest, of the first-fruits of thy labors, which thou hast sown in thy field: and the feast of ingathering, at the conclusion of the year, when thou gatherest in thy labors out of the field. ¹⁷ Three times in the year shall all thy males appear before the Lord, the Eternal. ¹⁸ Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread; neither shall the fat of my festive sacrifice remain until morning. ¹⁹ The first of the first-fruits of thy land shalt thou bring unto the house of the Lord thy God. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mother’s milk. ²⁰ Behold, I send an angel before thee, to keep thee on the way, and to bring thee unto the place which I have prepared. ²¹ Beware of him, and obey his voice, disobey him not; for he will not pardon your transgression, because my name is in him. ²² But if thou wilt carefully hearken to his voice, and do all that I shall speak: then will I be an enemy unto thy enemies, and afflict those that afflict thee. ²³ For my angel shall go before thee, and bring thee in unto the Emorites, and the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Canaanites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; and I will cut them off. ²⁴ Thou shalt not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do after their deeds; but thou shalt utterly overthrow them, and completely break down their statuary images. ²⁵ And ye shall serve the Lord your God, and he will bless thy bread, and thy water; and I will remove sickness from the midst of thee. ²⁶ There shall be no one casting her children, nor a barren woman, in thy land; the number of thy days I will make full. ²⁷ My terror will I send before thee, and will bring in confusion all the people to which thou shalt come; and I will make all thy enemies turn their back unto thee. ²⁸ And I will send hornets before thee, and they shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before thee. ²⁹ I will not drive them out from before thee in one year; lest the land become desolate, and the beast of the field multiply against thee. ³⁰ Little by little will I drive them out from before thee, until thou be increased and canst possess the land. ³¹ And I will set thy bounds from the Red Sea unto the sea of the Philistines, and from the desert unto the river; for I will deliver into your hand the inhabitants of the land, and thou shalt drive them out before thee. ³² Thou shalt not make a covenant with them, nor with their gods. ³³ They shall not dwell in thy land, lest they cause thee to sin against me; for thou mightest be led to serve their gods, and this would surely be a snare unto thee.