Exodus 23

1Do not spread a false report. Do not join hands with a wicked person by being a malicious witness.

2Do not follow the crowd in doing wrong. When you testify in a lawsuit, do not side with the crowd to pervert justice.

3And do not show favoritism to a poor person in his lawsuit.

4If you come across your enemy’s ox or donkey wandering off, you must be sure to take it back to him.

5If you see the donkey of someone who hates you lying down under its load, do not leave it there; you must help him with it.

6Do not deny justice to the poor among you in their lawsuits.

7Stay far away from a false charge, and do not put the innocent or the righteous to death, for I will not acquit the guilty.

8Do not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds those who see clearly and twists the words of the righteous.

9Do not oppress a foreigner. You yourselves know how it feels to be a foreigner, because you were foreigners in the land of Egypt.

10For six years you are to sow your land and gather its crops,

11but in the seventh year you are to let it rest and lie unused, so that the poor among your people may eat from it, and the wild animals may eat what they leave. Do the same with your vineyard and your olive grove.

12Six days you are to do your work, but on the seventh day you are to rest, so that your ox and your donkey may rest, and the son of your female servant and the foreigner may be refreshed.

13Be careful to do everything I have said to you. Do not invoke the names of other gods; do not let them be heard on your lips.

14Three times a year you are to celebrate a festival for me.

15Keep the Festival of Unleavened Bread. For seven days you are to eat bread made without yeast, as I commanded you, at the appointed time in the month of Abib, for in that month you came out of Egypt. No one is to appear before me empty-handed.

16Keep also the Festival of Harvest, with the firstfruits of your labor from what you sow in the field, and the Festival of Ingathering at the end of the year, when you gather in the results of your labor from the field.

17Three times a year all your males are to appear before the Lord Yahweh.

18Do not offer the blood of my sacrifice with anything containing yeast, and do not let the fat of my festival offering remain until morning.

19Bring the best of the firstfruits of your soil to the house of Yahweh your God. Do not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.

20I am sending an angel ahead of you to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place I have prepared.

21Pay attention to him and listen to his voice. Do not rebel against him, for he will not pardon your transgressions, since my name is in him.

22But if you listen carefully to his voice and do everything I say, I will be an enemy to your enemies and an opponent to your opponents.

23For my angel will go ahead of you and bring you to the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hivites, and Jebusites, and I will wipe them out.

24Do not bow down to their gods or serve them, and do not follow their practices. Instead, you must tear them down completely and smash their sacred pillars to pieces.

25Serve Yahweh your God, and he will bless your bread and your water. I will take sickness away from among you.

26No woman in your land will miscarry or be barren. I will give you the full number of your days.

27I will send my terror ahead of you and throw into confusion all the peoples you come against. I will make all your enemies turn their backs and run from you.

28I will send the hornet ahead of you, and it will drive the Hivites, Canaanites, and Hittites out of your way.

29I will not drive them out from before you in a single year, or the land would become desolate and the wild animals would multiply against you.

30Little by little I will drive them out from before you, until you have increased enough to take possession of the land.

31I will set your borders from the Red Sea to the Sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness to the Euphrates River, for I will hand over to you the people who live in the land, and you will drive them out before you.

32Do not make a covenant with them or with their gods.

33They must not live in your land, or they will make you sin against me. For if you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare to you.”