Exodus 23:2-29

English Standard Version

²You shall not fall in with the many to do evil, nor shall you bear witness in a lawsuit, siding with the many, so as to pervert justice, ³^(A)nor shall you be partial to a poor man in his lawsuit.

⁴^(B)“If you meet your enemy's ox or his donkey going astray, you shall bring it back to him. ⁵If you see the donkey of one who hates you lying down under its burden, you shall refrain from leaving him with it; you shall rescue it with him.

⁶^(C)“You shall not pervert the justice due to your poor in his lawsuit. ⁷^(D)Keep far from a false charge, and ^(E)do not kill the innocent and righteous, for ^(F)I will not acquit the wicked. ⁸^(G)And you shall take no bribe, for a bribe blinds the clear-sighted and subverts the cause of those who are in the right.

⁹^(H)“You shall not oppress a sojourner. You know the heart of a sojourner, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.

Laws About the Sabbath and Festivals

¹⁰^(I)“For six years you shall sow your land and gather in its yield, ¹¹but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, that the poor of your people may eat; and what they leave the beasts of the field may eat. You shall do likewise with your vineyard, and with your olive orchard.

¹²^(J)“Six days you shall do your work, but on the seventh day you shall rest; that your ox and your donkey may have rest, and the son of your servant woman, and the alien, may be refreshed.

¹³^(K)“Pay attention to all that I have said to you, and make no mention of the names of other gods, nor let it be heard on your lips.

¹⁴^(L)“Three times in the year you shall keep a feast to me. ¹⁵^(M)You shall keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread. As I commanded you, you shall eat unleavened bread for seven days at the appointed time in the month of ^(N)Abib, for in it you came out of Egypt. ^(O)None shall appear before me empty-handed. ¹⁶You shall keep ^(P)the Feast of Harvest, of the firstfruits of your labor, of what you sow in the field. You shall keep the ^(Q)Feast of Ingathering at the end of the year, when you gather in from the field the fruit of your labor. ¹⁷^(R)Three times in the year shall all your males appear before the Lord God.

¹⁸^(S)“You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with anything leavened, or let the fat of my feast remain until the morning.

¹⁹“The best of the ^(T)firstfruits of your ground you shall bring into the house of the Lord your God.

^(U)“You shall not boil a young goat in its mother's milk.

Conquest of Canaan Promised

²⁰^(V)“Behold, I send an angel before you to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place that I have prepared. ²¹Pay careful attention to him and obey his voice; ^(W)do not rebel against him, ^(X)for he will not pardon your transgression, for my name is in him.

²²“But if you carefully obey his voice and do all that I say, then ^(Y)I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries.

²³^(Z)“When my angel goes before you and brings you ^(AA)to the Amorites and the Hittites and the Perizzites and the Canaanites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, and I blot them out, ²⁴you shall ^(AB)not bow down to their gods nor serve them, ^(AC)nor do as they do, but ^(AD)you shall utterly overthrow them and break their ^(AE)pillars in pieces. ²⁵You ^(AF)shall serve the Lord your God, and ^(AG)he^[a] will bless your bread and your water, and ^(AH)I will take sickness away from among you. ²⁶^(AI)None shall miscarry or be barren in your land; I will fulfill the ^(AJ)number of your days. ²⁷I will send ^(AK)my terror before you and will throw into ^(AL)confusion all the people against whom you shall come, and I will make all your enemies turn their backs to you. ²⁸And ^(AM)I will send hornets^[b] before you, which shall drive out the Hivites, the Canaanites, and the Hittites from before you. ²⁹^(AN)I will not drive them out from before you in one year, lest the land become desolate and the wild beasts multiply against you.