Exodus 23

¹ 'You will not spread false rumours. You wil not lend support to the wicked by giving untrue evidence.

² You will not be led into wrong-doing by the majority nor, when giving evidence in a lawsuit, side withthe majority to pervert the course of justice;

³ nor wil you show partiality to the poor in a lawsuit.

⁴ 'If you come on your enemy's ox or donkey straying, you wil take it back to him.

⁵ If you see the donkey of someone who hates you fal en under its load, do not stand back; you must goand help him with it.

⁶ 'You will not cheat the poor among you of their rights at law.

⁷ Keep clear of fraud. Do not cause the death of the innocent or upright, and do not acquit the guilty.

⁸ You will accept no bribes, for a bribe blinds the clear-sighted and is the ruin of the cause of the upright.

⁹ 'You will not oppress the alien; you know how an alien feels, for you yourselves were once aliens inEgypt.

¹⁰ 'For six years you will sow your land and gather its produce,

¹¹ but in the seventh year you will let it lie fal ow and forgo al produce from it, so that those of yourpeople who are poor can take food from it and the wild animals eat what they have left. You wil do the samewith your vineyard and your olive grove.

¹² 'For six days you wil do your work, and on the seventh you will rest, so that your ox and your donkeymay rest and the child of your slave-girl have a breathing space, and the alien too.

¹³ 'Take notice of everything I have told you and do not mention the name of any other god: let noneever be heard from your lips.

¹⁴ 'Three times a year you wil hold a festival in my honour.

¹⁵ You wil observe the feast of Unleavened Bread. For seven days you wil eat unleavened bread, as Ihave commanded you, at the appointed time in the month of Abib, for in that month you came out of Egypt. Noone will appear before me empty-handed.

¹⁶ You wil also observe the feast of Harvest, of the first-fruits of your labours in sowing the fields, andthe feast of Ingathering, at the end of the year, once you have brought the fruits of your labours in from the fields.

¹⁷ Three times a year al your menfolk will appear before Lord Yahweh.

¹⁸ 'You wil not offer the blood of my victim with leavened bread, nor wil the fat of my feast be kept tilthe following day.

¹⁹ 'You wil bring the best of the first-fruits of your soil to the house of Yahweh your God. 'You wil notboil a kid in its mother's milk.

²⁰ 'Look, I am sending an angel to precede you, to guard you as you go and bring you to the place that Ihave prepared.

²¹ Revere him and obey what he says. Do not defy him: he wil not forgive any wrong-doing on yourpart, for my name is in him.

²² If, however, you obey what he says and do whatever I order, I shal be an enemy to your enemiesand a foe to your foes.

²³ My angel wil precede you and lead you to the home of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, theCanaanites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, whom I shal exterminate.

²⁴ You wil not bow down to their gods or worship them or observe their rites, but throw them down andsmash their cultic stones.

²⁵ You wil worship Yahweh your God, and then I shal bless your food and water, and keep you free ofsickness.

²⁶ In your country no woman will miscarry, none be sterile, and I shall give you your ful term of life.

²⁷ 'I shal send terror of myself ahead of you; I shal throw al the peoples you encounter into confusion,and make al your enemies take to their heels.

²⁸ I shal send hornets ahead of you to drive Hivite, Canaanite and Hittite out before you.

²⁹ I shal not drive them out ahead of you in a single year, or the land might become a desert where wildanimals would multiply to your cost.

³⁰ I shal drive them out little by little before you, until your numbers grow sufficient for you to takepossession of the land.

³¹ And your frontiers I shall fix from the Sea of Reeds to the Sea of the Philistines, and from the desertto the River, for I shal put the inhabitants of the territory at your mercy, and you will drive them out before you.

³² You wil make no pact with them or with their gods.

³³ They may not stay in your country or they might make you sin against me, for you would serve theirgods, and that would be a snare for you!'