Exodus 23

¹Thou shalt not admit a lying voice: neither shalt thou join thy hand to say false testimony for a wicked person.

²Thou shalt not follow the multitude to do evil: neither shalt thou in judgement agree to the sentence of the most part, to stray from the truth.

³The poor man also thou shalt not pity in judgment.

⁴If thou meet thy enemy's ox or ass going astray, bring it back to him.

⁵If thou see the ass of him that hateth thee lie underneath his burden, thou shalt not pass by, but shalt lift him up with the same.

⁶Thou shalt not decline the poor man's judgment.

⁷Alie thou shalt avoid. The innocent and just person thou shalt not put to death: because I abhor the impious man.

⁸Neither shalt thou take bribes, which do blind also the wise, and pervert the words of the just.

⁹The stranger thou shalt not molest, for you know the hearts of strangers: because yourselves also were strangers in the Land of Ægypt.

¹⁰Six years thou shalt sow thy ground, and shalt gather the corn thereof.

¹¹But the seventh year thou shalt let it alone, and make it to rest, that the poor of thy people may eat, and whatsoever shall be left, let the beasts of the field eat it: so shalt thou do in thy vineyard and thy olivet.

¹²Six days thou shalt work: the seventh day thou shalt cease, that thy ox may rest and thine ass: and the son of thy handmaid may be refreshed, and the stranger.

¹³Keep all things that I have said to you. And by the name of foreign gods you shall not swear, neither shall it be heard out of your mouth.

¹⁴Three times every year you shall celebrate feasts to me.

¹⁵Thou shalt keep the solemnity of Azymes. Seven days shalt thou eat azymes, as I commanded thee, in time of the month of new corn, when thou didst come forth out of Ægypt: thou shalt not appear in my sight empty.

¹⁶And the solemnity of the harvest of the first fruits of thy work, whatsoever thou didst sow in the field. The solemnity also in the end of the year, when thou hast gathered all thy corn out of the field.

¹⁷Thrice a year shall all thy male sex appear before the Lord thy God.

¹⁸Thou shalt not sacrifice the blood of my victim upon leaven, neither shall the fat of the solemnity remain until the morning.

¹⁹The first fruits of the corn of thy ground thou shalt carry into the house of the Lord thy God. Thou shalt not boil a kid in the milk of his dam.

²⁰Behold I will send mine Angel, which shall go before thee, and keep thee in thy journey, and bring thee into the place that I have prepared.

²¹Observe him, and hear his voice, neither do thou think him one to be contemned: for he will not forgive when thou hast sinned, and my name is in him.

²²But if thou wilt hear his voice, and do all that I speak, I will be enemy to thine enemies, & will afflict them that afflict thee.

²³And mine Angel shall go before thee, and shall bring thee in unto the Amorrheite, and Hetheite, & Pherezeite, and Chananeite, and Heveite, & Jebuseite, whom I will destroy.

²⁴Thou shalt not adore their gods, nor serve them. Thou shalt not do their works, but shalt destroy them, and break their statues.

²⁵And you shall serve the Lord your God, that I may bless your bread & waters, and may take away infirmity from the midst of thee.

²⁶There shall not be a fruitless nor barren body in thy land: I will fill the number of thy days.

²⁷I will send my terror to run before thee, and will kill all people, to whom thou shalt enter: and will turn the backs of all thine enemies before thee:

²⁸sending forth hornets before, that shall chase away the Heveite, and Chananeite, & Hetheite, before thou enter.

²⁹I will not cast them out from thy face in one year: lest the land be brought into a wilderness, and beasts increase against thee.

³⁰By little and little I will expel them from thy sight, till thou be increased, and dost possess the Land.

³¹And I will set thy bounds from the Red sea unto the sea of the Palestines, and from the desert unto the river: I will deliver the inhabitants of the Land in your hands, and will cast them out from your sight.

³²Thou shalt not enter league with them, nor with their gods.

³³Let them not dwell in thy land, lest perhaps they make thee to sin against me, if thou serve their gods: which undoubtedly will be a scandal to thee.