Exodus, Chapter 23
1
You will not take up a false report: don't put your hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness.
2
You will not follow a multitude to do evil; neither will you speak in a cause to turn aside after a multitude to pervert [justice]:
3
neither will you favor a poor man in his cause.
4
If you meet your enemy's ox or his donkey going astray, you will surely bring it back to him again.
5
If you see the donkey of him who hates you lying under his burden, you will forbear to leave him, you will strengthen [it] with him.
6
You will not pervert the justice [due] to your poor in his cause.
7
Keep far from a false matter; and do not slay the innocent and righteous: for I will not justify the wicked.
8
And you will take no bribe: for a bribe blinds those who have sight, and perverts the words of the righteous.
9
And a sojourner you will not oppress: for you⁺ know the soul of a sojourner, seeing you⁺ were sojourners in the land of Egypt.
10
And six years you will sow your land, and will gather in its increase:
11
but the seventh year you will let it rest and lie fallow; that the poor of your people may eat: and what they leave the beast of the field will eat. In like manner you will deal with your vineyard, [and] with your oliveyard.
12
Six days you will do your work, and on the seventh day you will rest; that your ox and your donkey may have rest, and the son of your female slave, and the sojourner, may be refreshed.
13
And in all things that I have said to you⁺ you⁺ take heed: and make no mention of the name of other gods, neither let it be heard out of your mouth.
14
Three times you will keep a feast to me in the year.
15
The feast of unleavened bread you will keep: seven days you will eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, at the time appointed in the month Abib (for in it you came out from Egypt); and no one will appear before me empty:[fn]
16
and the feast of harvest, the first fruits of your labors, which you sow in the field: and the feast of ingathering, at the end of the year, when you gather in your labors out of the field.
18
You will not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread; neither will the fat of my feast remain all night until the morning.
19
The first of the first fruits of your ground you will bring into the house of Yahweh your God. You will not boil a young goat in it mother's milk.
20
Look, I send an angel before you, to keep you by the way, and to bring you into the place which I have prepared.
21
You⁺ take heed before him, and listen to his voice; don't provoke him; for he will not pardon your⁺ transgression: for my name is in him.
22
But if you will indeed listen to his voice, and do all that I speak; then I will be an enemy to your enemies, and an adversary to your adversaries.
23
For my angel will go before you, and bring you in to the Amorite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Canaanite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite: and I will cut them off.
24
You will not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do after their works; but you will completely overthrow them, and break in pieces their pillars.
25
And you⁺ will serve Yahweh your⁺ God, and he will bless your bread, and your water; and I will take sickness away from the midst of you.
26
There will be none that cast her young, nor that will be barren, in your land: the number of your days I will fulfill.
27
I will send my terror before you, and will discomfit all the people to whom you will come, and I will make all your enemies turn their backs to you.
28
And I will send the hornet before you, which will drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before you.
29
I will not drive them out from before you in one year, or else the land will become desolate, and the beasts of the field will multiply against you.
30
By little and little I will drive them out from before you, until you are increased, and inherit the land.
31
And I will set your border from the Red Sea even to the sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness to the River: for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your⁺ hand: and you will drive them out before you.
32
You will make no covenant with them, nor with their gods.
33
They will not dwell in your land, or else they will make you sin against me; for if you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare to you.
Footnotes
15
will appear before me. This text was originally, 'will see my face'. HOTTP indicates this text originally contained the active form such as 'one will see'. However, it recommends 'will appear before' here since it is the earliest attested text. This is a theological correction by scribes to eliminate the active meaning and replace it with the passive meaning. See also, Exo 23:17; 34:20, 23, 24; Deu 16:16, 31:11, 1Sam 1:22, Psa 42:2, 84:7, Isa 1:12. Especially Exo 34:24 and Psa 42:3. For interpretation of seeing one's face, see similar phrasing in Gen 44:23-26.
17
will appear before the Sovereign Yahweh is the earliest attested text, but was originally, 'will see the face of the Sovereign Yahweh'. See Exo 23:15.
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