Exodus 23:1-33
23 “You must not take up an untrue report.+ Do not cooperate with a wicked one by becoming a witness who schemes violence.+
2 You must not follow after the crowd* for evil ends;+ and you must not testify over a controversy so as to turn aside with the crowd in order to pervert justice.*+
3 As for the lowly one, you must not show preference in a controversy of his.+
4 “Should you come upon your enemy’s bull or his ass going astray, you are to return it without fail to him.+
5 Should you see the ass of someone who hates you lying down under its load, then you must refrain from leaving him. With him you are without fail to get it loose.+
6 “You are not to pervert the judicial decision of your poor man in his controversy.+
7 “You are to keep far from a false word.+ And do not kill the innocent and the righteous, for I shall not declare the wicked one righteous.+
8 “You are not to accept a bribe,* for the bribe blinds clear-sighted men and can distort the words of righteous men.+
9 “And you must not oppress an alien resident,+ as YOU yourselves have known the soul* of the alien resident,* because YOU became alien residents in the land of Egypt.+
10 “And for six years you are to sow your land with seed and you must gather its produce.+
11 But the seventh year you are to leave it uncultivated and you must let it lie fallow,+ and the poor ones of your people must eat of it; and what is left over by them the wild beasts of the field are to eat.+ That is the way you are to do with your vineyard and your olive grove.
12 “Six days you are to do your work;+ but on the seventh day you are to desist,* in order that your bull and your ass may rest and the son of your slave girl and the alien resident may refresh themselves.+
13 “And YOU are to be on your guard respecting all that I have said to YOU;+ and YOU must not mention the name of other gods. It should not be heard upon your mouth.+
14 “Three times in the year you are to celebrate a festival to me.+
15 You will keep the festival of unfermented cakes.+ You will eat unfermented cakes+ seven days, just as I have commanded you, at the appointed time in the month of Aʹbib,+ because in it you came out of Egypt. And they must not appear* before me empty-handed.+
16 Also, the festival of harvest of the first ripe fruits+ of your labors, of what you sow in the field;+ and the festival of ingathering at the outgoing of the year, when you gather in your labors from the field.+
17 On three occasions in the year every male of yours will appear before the face of the [true] Lord,* Jehovah.*+
18 “You must not sacrifice along with what is leavened the blood of my sacrifice. And the fat of my festival should not stay overnight until morning.+
19 “The best* of the first ripe fruits of your ground you are to bring to the house of Jehovah your God.+
“You must not boil a kid in its mother’s milk.+
20 “Here I am sending an angel+ ahead of you to keep you on the road and to bring you into the place that I have prepared.+
21 Watch yourself because of him and obey his voice. Do not behave rebelliously against him, for he will not pardon YOUR transgression;+ because my name is within him.*
22 However, if you strictly obey his voice and really do all that I shall speak,+ then I shall certainly be hostile to your enemies and harass those who harass you.+
23 For my angel will go ahead of you and will indeed bring you to the Amʹor·ites and the Hitʹtites and the Perʹiz·zites and the Caʹnaan·ites, the Hiʹvites and the Jebʹu·sites, and I shall certainly efface them.+
24 You must not bow down to their gods or be induced to serve them, and you must not make anything like their works,+ but you will without fail throw them down and you will without fail break down their sacred pillars.+
25 And YOU must serve Jehovah YOUR God,+ and he will certainly bless your bread and your water;+ and I shall indeed turn malady away from your midst.+
26 Neither a woman suffering an abortion* nor a barren woman will exist in your land.+ I shall make the number of your days full.+
27 “And I shall send the fright of me ahead of you,+ and I shall certainly throw into confusion all the people among whom you come, and I shall indeed give the back of the neck of all your enemies to you.*+
28 And I will send the feeling of dejection* ahead of you,+ and it will simply drive the Hiʹvites, the Caʹnaan·ites and the Hitʹtites out from before you.+
29 I shall not drive them out from before you in one year, that the land may not become a desolate waste and the wild beasts of the field really multiply against you.+
30 Little by little I shall drive them out from before you, until you become fruitful and really take possession of the land.+
31 “And I will fix your boundary from the Red Sea to the sea of the Phi·lisʹtines and from the wilderness to the River;*+ because I shall give into YOUR hand the inhabitants of the land, and you* will certainly drive them out from before yourself.+
32 You are not to conclude a covenant with them or their gods.+
33 They should not dwell in your land, that they may not cause you to sin against me. In case you should serve* their gods, it would become a snare to you.”+
Footnotes
^ Lit., “many.”
^ Or, “gift; present.”
^ Or, “the state of existence.” Heb., neʹphesh; Gr., psy·khenʹ.
^ “Alien resident.” Gr., pro·se·lyʹtou.
^ Or, “take a rest; keep sabbath.”
^ “You must not appear,” LXXVg.
^ “Jehovah,” MSam; LXXSyVgc, “your God.”
^ “The [true] Lord.” Heb., ha·ʼA·dhonʹ; Gr., Ky·riʹou. See App 1H.
^ Or, “choice; chief.” Lit., “beginning.”
^ That is, the “angel” as Jehovah’s representative, to act in his name.
^ Or, “a casting of her young.”
^ Or, “I shall indeed make all your enemies turn tail before you.”
^ “Feeling of dejection.” Gr., sphe·kiʹas; Lat., cra·broʹnes, “hornets.” Koehler’s Kleine Lichter, Zurich, 1945, shows that the Heb. word hats·tsir·ʽahʹ corresponds with the Arabic word that means “dejectedness; discouragement; abasement.” But in the past, scholars have understood the Heb. word as a metaphor to designate “ills and calamities.” See De 7:20 and Jos 24:12, the only other places this expression occurs in M.
^ LXX adds “Euphrates.”
^ “You,” MSy; SamLXXVg, “I.”
^ Or, “you should worship.” Heb., tha·ʽavodhʹ.
