Chapter 23

Thou shalt not raise a false report: put not thy hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness.

Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil; neither shalt thou speak in a cause to decline after many to wrest judgment:

Neither shalt thou countenance a poor man in his cause.

If thou shalt meet thy enemy's ox or his ass going astray, thou shalt surely bring it back to him again.

If thou shalt see the ass of him that hateth thee lying under his burden, and wouldest forbear to help him, thou shalt surely help with him.

Thou shalt not wrest the judgment of thy poor in his cause.

Keep thee far from a false matter; and the innocent and righteous slay thou not: for I will not justify the wicked.

And thou shalt take no gift: for the gift blindeth the wise, and perverteth the words of the righteous.

Also thou shalt not oppress a stranger; for ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.

And six years thou shalt sow thy land, and shalt gather in the fruits thereof:

But the seventh year thou shalt let it rest and lie still; that the poor of thy people may eat: and what they leave, the beasts of the field shall eat. In like manner thou shalt deal with thy vineyard, and with thy olive-yard.

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

And in all things that I have said to you be circumspect: and make no mention of the names of other gods, neither let it be heard from thy mouth.

Three times thou shalt keep a feast to me in the year.

Thou shalt keep the feast of unleavened bread: (thou shalt eat unleavened bread seven days, as I commanded thee, in the time appointed of the month Abib; for in it thou camest out from Egypt: and none shall appear before me empty:)

And the feast of harvest, the first-fruits of thy labors, which thou hast sown in the field: and the feast of in-gathering, which is in the end of the year, when thou hast gathered in thy labors out of the field.

Three times in the year all thy males shall appear before the Lord GOD.

Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread; neither shall the fat of my sacrifice remain until the morning.

The first of the first-fruits of thy land thou shalt bring into the house of the LORD thy God. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk.

Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared.

Beware of him, and obey his voice, provoke him not; for he will not pardon your transgressions: for my name is in him.

But if thou shalt indeed obey his voice, and do all that I speak; then I will be an enemy to thy enemies, and an adversary to thy adversaries.

For my Angel shall go before thee, and bring thee in to the Amorites, and the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Canaanites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites; and I will cut them off.

Thou shalt not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do after their works: but thou shalt utterly overthrow them, and quite break down their images.

And ye shall serve the LORD your God, and he will bless thy bread, and thy water; and I will take sickness away from the midst of thee.

There shall nothing cast their young, nor be barren, in thy land: I will complete the number of thy days.

I will send my fear before thee, and will destroy all the people to whom thou shalt come, and I will make all thy enemies turn their backs to thee.

And I will send hornets before thee, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite from before thee.

I will not drive them out from before thee in one year; lest the land should become desolate, and the beast of the field should multiply against thee.

By little and little I will drive them out from before thee, until thou shalt be increased and inherit the land.

And I will set thy bounds from the Red sea even to the sea of the Philistines, and from the desert to the river: for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand; and thou shalt drive them out before thee.

Thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor with their gods.

They shall not dwell in thy land, lest they make thee to sin against me: for if thou shalt serve their gods, it will surely be a snare to thee.