Exodus 23
The Scriptures (ISR 1998)

1“Do not bring a false report. Do not put your hand with the wrong to be a malicious witness.

2“Do not follow a crowd to do evil, nor bear witness in a strife so as to turn aside after many, to turn aside what is right.

3“And do not favour a poor man in his strife.

4“When you meet your enemy’s ox or his donkey going astray, you shall certainly return it to him.

5“When you see the donkey of him who hates you lying under its burden, you shall refrain from leaving it to him, you shall certainly help him.

6“Do not turn aside the right-ruling of your poor in his strife.

7“Keep yourself far from a false matter, and do not kill the innocent and the righteous, for I do not declare the wrong right.

8“And do not take a bribe, for a bribe blinds the seeing one and twists the words of the righteous.

9“And do not oppress a sojourner, as you yourselves know the heart of a sojourner, because you were sojourners in the land of Mitsrayim.

10“And for six years you are to sow your land, and shall gather its increase,

11but the seventh year you are to let it rest, and shall leave it, and the poor of your people shall eat. And what they leave, the beasts of the field eat. Do the same with your vineyard and your oliveyard.

12“Six days you are to do your work, and on the seventh day you rest, in order that your ox and your donkey might rest, and the son of your female servant and the sojourner be refreshed.

13“And in all that I have said to you take heed. And make no mention of the name of other mighty ones, let it not be heard from your mouth.

14“Threea times in the year you are to observe a festival to Me:

15“Guard the Festival of Unleavened Bread. Seven days you eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, at the time appointed in the month of Aḇiḇ – for in it you came out of Mitsrayim – and do not appear before Me empty-handed;

16and the Festival of the Harvest, the first-fruits of your labours which you have sown in the field; and the Festival of the Ingathering at the outgoing of the year, when you have gathered in the fruit of your labours from the field.

17“Three times in the year all your males are to appear before the Master יהוה.

18“Do not offer the blood of My slaughtering with leavened bread, and the fat of My offering shall not remain until morning.

19“Bring the first of the first-fruits of your land into the House of יהוה your Elohim. Do not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk.

20“See, I am sending a Messenger before you to guard you in the way and to bring you into the place which I have prepared.

21“Be on guard before Him and obey His voice. Do not rebel against Him, for He is not going to pardon your transgression, for My Name is in Him.

22“But if you diligently obey His voice and shall do all that I speak, then I shall be an enemy to your enemies and a distresser to those who distress you.

23“For My Messenger shall go before you and shall bring you in to the Amorites and the Ḥittites and the Perizzites and the Kena‛anites and the Ḥiwwites and the Yeḇusites, and I shall cut them off.

24“Do not bow down to their mighty ones, nor serve them, nor do according to their works, but without fail overthrow them and without fail break down their pillars.

25“And you shall serve יהוה your Elohim, and He shall bless your bread and your water. And I shall remove sickness from your midst.

26“None shall miscarry or be barren in your land. I shall fill the number of your days.

27“I shall send My fear before you, and cause confusion among all the people to whom you come, and make all your enemies turn their backs to you.

28“And I shall send hornets before you, which shall drive out the Ḥiwwite, the Kena‛anite, and the Ḥittite from before you.

29“I shall not drive them out from before you in one year, lest the land become a waste and the beast of the field become too numerous for you.

30“Little by little I shall drive them out from before you, until you have increased, and you inherit the land.

31“And I shall set your border from the Sea of Reeds to the Sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness to the River, for I shall give the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and you shall drive them out before you.

32“Do not make a covenant with them nor with their mighty ones.

33“Let them not dwell in your land, lest they make you sin against Me when you serve their mighty ones, when it becomes a snare to you.”

Exodus 22
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