UST by section EXO 23:1

⌂ ← EXO 23:1–23:33 → ║ ©

The Book of Exodus 23

23 Do not speak falsely in court. Do not help an evil man by testifying maliciously. 2 Do not join a group of people who are planning to do something evil. Do not tell the same lies they do and so keep the judge from deciding the case justly. 3 Do not prefer someone in court just because he is poor.

4 If you see someone’s bull or donkey when it is wandering away loose, take it back to its owner even if the owner is your enemy. 5 If you see someone’s donkey that has fallen down because of its heavy load, help the owner to get the donkey up again even if he is someone who hates you. Do not just walk away without helping him.

6 Decide the cases of poor people who are on trial as fairly as you judge the cases of other people. 7 Do not deceive others. Do not kill guiltless or upright people, because I will not say that evil people are good. 8 Do not accept a bribe, because good judges who take bribes do not judge wisely, and they unfairly judge against the person who is right.

9 Do not mistreat foreigners who live among you. You know how foreigners often feel, because you lived as foreigners in Egypt.

10 For six years, plant seeds in your ground and gather the harvest. 11 But in the seventh year you must leave the ground fallow. Allow your poor countrymen to eat what grows on its own. Whatever is left over is for the wild animals to eat. Do the same thing with your grapevine and your olive trees.

12 You may work for six days each week, but on the seventh day you must rest and not work. Do this so that your ox and donkey may rest. The rest day will also let your slaves and the foreigners who live among you recuperate.

13 Make certain that you obey everything that I have commanded you to do. Do not pray to other gods. Do not even mention their names.

14 Every year you must travel to three celebrations to honor me:

15 Celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread the way that I commanded you: eat unleavened bread for seven days in the month called Aviv. I set this time because it is the month when you left Egypt. Always bring me an offering when you come to worship me.

16 The second celebration is the Spring Harvest Celebration. During that celebration you must offer to me the first parts of your crops that grow from the seeds that you planted.

The third celebration is the Finished Harvest Celebration. That will be at the end of the year, after you finish harvesting everything you planted.

17 These three times every year, all the men must gather together to worship me, the Lord Yahweh.

18 Do not sacrifice bread you made with yeast along with blood from an animal sacrifice. Do not keep the fat from the animals you sacrificed at my celebration until the next morning. Burn it completely. 19 Each year, when you harvest your crops, take the best of what you harvest first, go to the place where you worship me, and give it to me, Yahweh your God. When you kill a young animal, do not cook it by boiling it in its mother’s milk.

20 Look! I am going to send an angel ahead of you to guard you as you travel and to lead you to the place that I have made ready for you. 21 Respect and obey him. Do not make him angry, because he will not forgive your sin, because my authority and presence is in him. 22 But if you obey his commands well and if you do all that I tell you to do, I will fight against all of your enemies and adversaries. 23 Then my angel will go ahead of you and will take you to where the Amor, Heth, Periz, Canaan, Hiv, and Jebus people groups live, and I will completely get rid of them. 24 Do not bow down before their gods or worship them. Do not do the things that they think that their gods want them to do. Instead, destroy their gods and smash to pieces their sacred stones.

25 You must worship me, Yahweh your God. If you do that, I will bless your food and water, and I will protect you from becoming sick. 26 No women in your land will have miscarriages, and no women will be unable to become pregnant. I will enable you to live a long time.

27 I will go ahead of you and terrify and confuse all the people into whose lands you are going. When you fight your enemies, I will make them run away from you. 28 I will send wasps ahead of you who will drive the Hiv, Canaan, and Heth people groups from your land. 29 I will not remove all of them in less than one year. If I did that, your land would become deserted, and there would be very many wild animals that would attack you. 30 I will remove those people groups slowly, a few at a time, until the number of your people increases and you are able to live everywhere in the land. 31 I will make your country’s borders be from the Red Sea in the southeast to the Mediterranean Sea by the Philistines in the northwest, and from the wilderness of Sinai in the southwest to the Euphrates River in the northeast of the country. I will give you the power to remove the people who live there, so that you will remove them as you occupy more of the country.

32 You must not make any agreement with those people or with their gods. 33 Do not allow those people to live in your land, so they do not cause you to sin against me by enticing you to worship their gods.”

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