Exodus 23

1 “You are not to take up an empty report. You are not to side with the unjust man to become an unjust witness. 2 You are not to go along with the crowd in doing wrong. You are not to join the many, bending with the majority so as to bend judgment aside. 3 And you are not to favor even a poor man in his case. [a] 4 If you come upon your enemy’s ox or his donkey wandering loose, turn it around and bring it back to him. 5 If you see your enemy’s donkey fallen under its load, do not pass it by — help him raise it up. 6 You are not to twist the case of the poor man when he is judged. 7 Keep far from every unjust matter. You are not to kill the innocent and the righteous, and you are not to declare the ungodly righteous for the sake of gifts. 8 And you are not to take gifts — for gifts blind the eyes of those who see, and ruin words that are just. 9 And you are not to press a newcomer hard. You yourselves know the soul of a newcomer, for you were newcomers in the land of Egypt.

10 Six years you are to sow your land and gather in its produce, 11 but in the seventh you are to give it release and let it lie, and the poor of your nation will eat, and the wild animals will eat what they leave. You are to do the same with your vineyard and your olive grove. 12 Six days you are to do your work, but on the seventh day there is rest — so that your ox and your donkey may rest, and the son of your servant girl, and the newcomer, may catch their breath. 13 Keep everything I have said to you. And you are not to call to mind the name of other gods; it is not to be heard out of your mouth. 14 Three times in the year you are to keep a feast to me. 15 Keep the feast of bread without yeast: seven days you are to eat bread without yeast, as I commanded you, at the set time of the month of the new grain — for in it you came out of Egypt. And you are not to appear before me empty-handed. 16 And keep the feast of the harvest of the firstfruits of your labors, of whatever you sow in your field; and the feast of completion at the year’s going out, when you gather in your labors from the field. 17 Three times in the year every male among you is to appear before the Lord your God. 18 For when I have driven out the nations from before you and widened your borders, you are not to offer the blood of my sacrifice with anything leavened, and the fat of my feast is not to lie until morning. 19 You are to bring the firstfruits of the first produce of your land into the house of the Lord your God. You are not to boil a lamb in its mother’s milk.

20 And look — I am sending my messenger ahead of you, to guard you on the road and to bring you into the land I have made ready for you. [b] 21 Watch yourself, and listen to him, and do not disobey him; for he will not back down before you — my name is on him. 22 If you will really listen to my voice, and do everything I command you, and keep my covenant, you will be to me a people of my own out of all the nations — for the whole earth is mine — and you will be to me a royal priesthood and a holy nation. These are the words you are to speak to the children of Israel: If you really listen to my voice and do everything I tell you, I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries. [c] 23 For my messenger will go as your leader and bring you in to the Amorite and the Hittite and the Perizzite and the Canaanite and the Girgashite and the Hivite and the Jebusite — and I will wipe them out. 24 You are not to bow down to their gods, and you are not to serve them. You are not to act by their works: you are to tear them down — tear them down entirely — and shatter their standing stones to pieces. 25 And you are to serve the Lord your God, and I will bless your bread and your wine and your water, and I will turn sickness away from you. 26 There will be no childless man and no barren woman in your land. The number of your days I will fill full. [d] 27 And I will send the fear ahead of you as your leader, and I will throw into confusion every nation you come against, and I will make all your adversaries run. 28 And I will send the hornets ahead of you, and they will drive out the Amorites and the Hivites and the Canaanites and the Hittites from before you. 29 I will not drive them out in one year, or the land would turn to waste and the wild animals multiply against you. 30 Little by little I will drive them out from before you, until you have grown and possess the land. 31 And I will set your borders from the Red Sea to the sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness to the great river Euphrates. I will give those who sit in the land into your hands, and I will drive them out from before you. 32 You are not to make a covenant with them or with their gods. 33 They are not to stay in your land, or they will make you sin against me — for if you serve their gods, they will be a stumbling block to you.”