Old/New Testament
Chapter 23
A Righteous and Fraternal People. 1 “You shall not utter a false report. Do not join hands with the guilty to be an unjust witness. 2 Neither shall you follow the multitude in doing evil nor shall you testify in a suit in order to agree with the multitude and thus falsify justice.
3 “You shall not even show partiality toward a weak man in a lawsuit.
4 [a]“When you encounter the lost ox or donkey of your enemy, you shall bring it back to him. 5 When you see your enemy’s donkey lying helpless under its burden, you shall refrain from leaving him alone. You must help him to release it.
6 “You shall not pervert justice for a needy person who turns to you in a dispute.
7 “Keep far away from falsehoods. Do not slay the innocent or the just, for I will not acquit the wicked.
8 “Do not accept gifts, for gifts blind the clear-sighted and pervert the cause of the righteous.
9 “Do not oppress those who are sojourners, for you know the life of the sojourner because you yourselves were sojourners in the land of Egypt.
10 “For six years you shall sow the land and you shall harvest its produce, 11 but in the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow so that the needy of your people may eat of it. Whatever is left, let the beasts of the field eat it. You shall do likewise with your vineyards and your olive groves. 12 For six days you shall do your work, but on the seventh day you shall rest so that your ox and your donkey may rest, as well as the sons of your female slaves and your sojourners.
13 “You shall take heed of all that I have said to you. Do not mention the names of other gods, nor let them be heard on your lips.
14 Feasts and Rites To Be Observed.“Three times a year you shall celebrate a feast in my honor.[b]
15 “You shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread. You must eat unleavened products for seven days, as I have commanded you, at the appointed time in the month of Abib, for in that month I brought you out of the land of Egypt. You will not appear before me empty-handed.
16 “You shall also observe the Harvest Feast of the firstfruits of that which you have sown in the fields as well as the Feast of Ingathering at the end of the year when you gather the fruit of your labor in the fields.
17 “Three times a year all your men shall appear before the Lord God.
18 “You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread, nor shall you allow the fat of my feast to remain till the morning.
19 “You shall bring the best of the firstfruits of your soil to the house of the Lord, your God. You shall not cook a kid goat in its mother’s milk.[c]
20 Promises and Instructions for Entering into Canaan.[d]“Behold, I will send an angel before you to protect you on your way and to bring you to the place that I have prepared. 21 Pay heed to him and listen to his voice and do not rebel against him for he will not pardon your transgression since my name is in him. 22 If you listen to his voice and do what I will tell you, I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries.
23 “When my angel goes before you and leads you to the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, I will destroy them. 24 You shall not bow down to their gods nor serve them. You shall not do what they do, but rather you shall demolish and break their sacred pillars to pieces.
25 “You shall serve the Lord, your God. He will bless your bread and water and take away sickness from your midst. 26 There will be no woman in your land who miscarries or who is sterile. I will make you arrive at the full count of your days.
27 “I will send my terror before you and throw into confusion all the peoples among whom you will come. I will make your enemies turn their backs and flee.
28 “I will send hornets ahead of you and they will drive out the Hivites, the Canaanites, and the Hittites from before you. 29 I will not drive them out from before you in a single year lest the country remain deserted and the wild beasts multiply against you. 30 Little by little I will drive them out before you until you have many sons to occupy the land.
31 “I will establish your borders from the Red Sea up to the sea of the Philistines, and from the desert to the river. I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hands and I will drive them out from before you. 32 But you must not make a covenant with them or their gods. 33 They are no longer to live in your land. Otherwise, they would make you sin against me, for you would serve their gods and that would be a trap for you.”
Chapter 24
The People of God Ratify the Covenant.[e] 1 He said to Moses, “Come up to the Lord, you and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, and worship from afar. 2 Moses alone shall approach the Lord, but the others shall not draw near and the people shall not go up with him.”
3 Moses went to tell the people all the words of the Lord and all the ordinances. All the people answered together and said, “We will keep all the commands that the Lord has given.”
4 Moses wrote down all the words of the Lord. Then he rose early in the morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain with twelve pillars for the twelve tribes of Israel. 5 He sent some of the young men of Israel to offer burnt offerings and to sacrifice young bulls as peace offerings to the Lord.
6 Moses took half of the blood and placed it in bowls and the other half of the blood he poured out on the altar. 7 He then took the book of the covenant and read it in the presence of the people. They said, “All that the Lord has commanded, we will do and obey.”
8 Moses took the blood and sprinkled it on the people saying, “Behold, the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.”
9 Then Moses went up with Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and the seventy elders of Israel. 10 They saw the God of Israel. Under his feet was a pavement that looked as if it were made from sapphires, shining like the very heavens. 11 He did not stretch out his hand against the nobles of the sons of Israel; they saw God and yet they continued to eat and drink.
Moses on the Mountain: The Regulation of Worship[f]
12 Moses Ascends the Mountain of God. The Lord said to Moses, “Climb up to me on the mountain and remain there. I will give you stone tablets with the laws and commandments that I have written for their instruction.”
13 Then Moses went up with Joshua, his assistant, and they climbed the mountain of God. 14 He told the elders, “Remain here to wait for us until we return to you. Aaron and Hur are here with you. Whoever has any concern can bring it to them.”
15 Moses then climbed up the mountain, and clouds covered the mountain.
16 The glory of the Lord[g] settled upon Mount Sinai, and clouds covered it for seven days. On the seventh day he called to Moses from out of the cloud.
17 The glory of the Lord appeared to the children of Israel to be a consuming fire on the mountaintop. 18 Moses entered into the midst of the cloud and climbed up the mountain. He remained on the mountain for forty days and forty nights.
Chapter 20
The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard.[a] 1 “The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. 2 After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius[b] a day, he sent them into his vineyard. 3 Going out about nine o’clock,[c] he saw some others standing idle in the marketplace. 4 He said to them, ‘You also go into my vineyard and I will give you what is just.’ 5 When he went out again around noon and at three in the afternoon,[d] he did the same. 6 Then, about five o’clock,[e] he went out and found others standing around, and he said to them, ‘Why have you been standing here idle all day?’ 7 They answered, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You too go into my vineyard.’
8 “When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Summon the workers and give them their pay, beginning with those who came last and ending with the first.’ 9 When those who had started to labor at five o’clock came, each of them received a denarius. 10 Therefore, those who had come first thought that they would receive more, but they were paid a denarius, the same as the others. 11 And when they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner, 12 saying, ‘These men who were hired last worked only one hour, and yet you have rewarded them on the same level with us who have borne the greatest portion of the work and the heat of the day.’
13 “The owner replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am not treating you unfairly. Did you not agree with me to work for a denarius? 14 Take your pay and leave. I have chosen to pay the latecomers the same as I pay you. 15 Am I not free to do as I wish with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ 16 Thus, the last will be first and the first will be last.”
Copyright © 2019 by Catholic Book Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.