Open English Translation EXO Chapter 23

23 You mustn’t present a false statement. Don’t conspire with a wicked person to give false evidence.[ref] 2 Don’t just follow the crowd into doing what’s wrong, and don’t just say what others say in court if it’s untrue, 3 and don’t automatically favour the poor in court either.[ref]

4 If you come across your enemy’s cow or donkey going astray, you must certainly take it back to them.[ref] 5 If you see that the donkey of someone who hates you has fallen to the ground under its load, you mustn’t just walk way—you must certainly help them with it.

6 You mustn’t deny justice to the poor in their lawsuits.[ref] 7 Stay far way from deceptive words. You mustn’t kill innocent or honest people because I won’t allow wicked people to be declared innocent. 8 You mustn’t accept bribes, because bribes stop people from being unbiased and they undermine the words of honest people.

9 You mustn’t oppress foreigners since you yourselves know how that feels because you all were foreigners in Egypt.[ref]

10 You should plant your land and gather its produce for six years,[ref] 11 but in the seventh year you must let the harvest drop and just leave it there and allow the poor people to eat it. Then the animals in the countryside can eat the reminder. You must also do that to your vineyards and your olive orchards.

12 Six days You should work for six days, then on the seventh day you must rest so that your cow and your donkey can rest, and the children of your slaves and the foreigner staying in your land can be refreshed.[ref]

13 Take careful notice of everything that I’ve told you all. You all mustn’t invoke other gods—in fact don’t even mention their names.

14 You must celebrate me three times every year. 15 1/ You must observe the Flat Bread Celebration. You must eat unleavened bread for seven days as I commanded you, in late March or early April because that’s when you came out from Egypt. You mustn’t come without an offering.[ref]

16 2/ You must observe the Spring Harvest Celebration, bringing the first portion of your harvests from what you planted.

3/ You must observe the Finished Harvest Celebration at the end of the year, after you’ve finished harvesting everything you planted. 17 So all your males must gather in front of the master Yahweh three times each year.

18 You mustn’t sacrifice the blood of my sacrifices together with bread that’s been risen, and all the fat must be burnt during the night so that none remains in the morning.

19 You must bring the best of the firstfruits of your harvests to the house of Yahweh your god.

You mustn’t boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.[ref]

20 Listen, I’m about to send a messenger in front of you to guard you on the way, and to take you to the place that I have prepared. 21 Stay behind him and listen to what he says. Don’t annoy him because he won’t put up with disobedience because he represents my authority. 22 But if you take careful notice of his words and do everything that I say, then I’ll be an enemy to your enemies and I’ll be against those who are against you. 23 My messenger will go ahead of you and take you to face the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hivites, and the Yebusites, and then I’ll annihilate them. 24 You mustn’t serve or bow down to their gods, and you mustn’t do what those people do, because you must completely overthrow them and completely smash their sacred stone pillars. 25 You all must worship your god Yahweh, and he’ll bless your food and your water. I’ll keep sickness away from you 26 and there won’t be any miscarriages or women in your land that can’t conceive. I’ll ensure that you live your full number of days.

27 I’ll go ahead of you and will terrify and confuse all of the people groups whose lands you’ll enter, and I’ll cause them to flee from you in battle. 28 I’ll send hornets ahead of you and they’ll drive out the Hivites, the Canaanites, and the Hittites before you get there. 29 I won’t drive them out more than a year ahead of you in case the area becomes desolate and the wild animals proliferate too much in the countryside. 30 I’ll drive them out little by little ahead of you until your numbers increase and you take over the land. 31 Then I’ll help you establish your borders from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean, and from the wilderness to the Euphrates river, because I’ll help you defeat the existing inhabitants of the land and so you’ll drive them right out. 32 You mustn’t make any agreement with those people or with their gods. 33 They mustn’t live in your land, in case they cause you to sin against me. Their gods would certainly become a trap for you, and then you’d end up worshipping them.