Exodus 23

1You shall not take up a false report. Do not lend your hand to the wicked to be a malicious witness.

2Do not go after the many to do evil, nor answer in a dispute to turn aside after the many to pervert.

3Do not show favor to a poor man in his dispute.

4If you encounter your enemy's ox or his donkey straying, you shall surely return it to him.

5If you see your enemy's donkey lying under its burden and would refrain from releasing it, you shall surely release it with him.

6Do not pervert the justice of your poor in his dispute.

7Distance yourself from a false matter, and do not kill the innocent and righteous, for I will not acquit the wicked.

8Do not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds the clear-sighted and perverts the words of the righteous.

9Do not mistreat a sojourner, for you know the soul of a sojourner, since you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.

10Six years you shall sow your land and gather its yield.

11The seventh year you shall release it and abandon it, so the needy among your people may eat; and what they leave behind, the beasts of the field shall eat. Do the same with your vineyard and your olive grove.

12Six days you shall do your work, and on the seventh day you shall rest, so that your ox and your donkey may rest, and the son of your maidservant and the sojourner may refresh themselves.

13Be careful about everything I have said to you, and do not mention the name of other gods, nor let it be heard from your mouth.

14You shall celebrate three feasts for me in the year.

15You shall keep the festival of unleavened bread; seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, at the appointed time in Abib month—for in it you came out from Egypt—and none shall appear before me empty.

16And the harvest feast, the firstfruits of your labors that you sow in the field, and the ingathering feast at the year's end, when you gather your labors from the field.

17All your males shall appear before the Lord Yahweh three times a year.

18You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven, nor shall the fat of my feast remain until morning.

19You shall bring the first of your ground's firstfruits to the house of Yahweh your God. You shall not boil a kid in its mother's milk.

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

21Be attentive to him and obey his voice; do not provoke him, for he will not forgive your transgressions, for my name is in him.

22But if you truly heed his voice and do all that I say, I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries.

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

24You shall not prostrate yourself before their gods, nor serve them, nor do like their deeds, for you shall completely destroy them and shatter their pillars.

25You shall serve Yahweh your God, and he will bless your bread and your water, and I will remove sickness from your midst.

26No one will miscarry or be barren in your land. I will complete the number of your days.

27I will send my dread before you and will dismay all the people among whom you come, and I will make all your enemies turn their backs to you.

28I will send the hornet before you, and it will drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite from before you.

29I will not expel them from before you in one year, lest the land become a wasteland and the beasts of the field multiply against you.

30Little by little I will drive them out from before you, until you become fruitful and inherit the land.

31I will appoint your border from the Red Sea to the sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness to the River, for I will give the land's inhabitants into your hand, and you will drive them out from before you.

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

33They must not settle in your land, lest they cause you to sin against me, for if you serve their gods, it will become a snare to you.