Exodus, Chapter 23:

Verses from Exodus, Chapter 23 of the book of Exodus of the Bible.

Exodus - Old Testament — Exodus – Old Testament

Laws of justice and mercy

1. You shall not raise a false rumor, and you shall not lay your hand with the wicked, to be a witness to injustice.
2. You will not follow the majority to do evil; nor will you respond in the plea by leaning towards many to twist the right;
3. You will not even favor the poor in their cause.
4. If you find your enemy's lost ox or donkey, you will certainly bring it back to him.
5. If you see the donkey of the one who hates you lying under its load, will you stop helping it? You will certainly help him to lift it.
6. Thou shalt not pervert the right of thy poor man in his cause.
7. You will depart from false words, and you will not kill the innocent and the righteous; for I will not justify the wicked.
8. And you shall not take breasts; for the breast blinds those who have sight, and perverts the words of the righteous.
9. Nor shall you oppress a foreigner; for you know the heart of a stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.

Laws about the Sabbath

10. And for six years you will sow your land, and you will gather in its produce.
11. But in the seventh you shall let it rest and let it loose, so that the poor of your people may eat, and what is left of it may be eaten by the beasts of the field. This is what you will do with your vineyard and your olive grove.
12. Six days you will do your work, but on the seventh day you will rest, so that your ox and your donkey may rest, and the son of your slave girl and the foreigner may be refreshed.
13. And in all that I have told you, you will walk; and you shall not mention the name of other gods, nor shall it be heard from your mouth.

The three annual festivals

14. Three times a year you will celebrate me as a feast.
18. You shall keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread; seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, at the time appointed in the month of Abib; because in it you came out of Egypt; no one appears empty before me;
16. and the festival of harvest, of the firstfruits of your labor, which you have sown in the field; and the festival of harvest, at the end of the year, when you gather the fruit of your labor from the fields.
17. Three times in the year every man of yours will appear before the Lord Jehovah.
18. You shall not sacrifice the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread, nor shall the sacrifice of the Passover feast remain until the next day.
19. The firstfruits of your land you shall bring to the house of the Lord your God; You shall not boil a kid in its mother's milk.

The angel of God

20. Behold, I send an angel before you, to keep you on the way, and to bring you into the place which I have prepared for you.
21. Beware of him, and listen to his voice, do not provoke him to anger, for he will not forgive your transgression; because my name is on it.
22. But if you diligently listen to his voice, and do everything I say, 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 into the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hivites and the Jebusites; and I will exterminate them.
24. You shall not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do according to their works; but thou shalt utterly destroy them, and utterly break their statues.
25. You will therefore serve the Lord your God, and he will bless your bread and your water; and I will take away sickness from among you.
26. In your land there will be no woman who miscarries or is barren; I will complete the number of your days.
27. I will send my terror before you, and I will confound all the people among whom you enter, and I will make all your enemies turn their backs on you.
28. I will also send wasps before you, and they will drive out the Hivites, the Canaanites, and the Hittites from before you.
29. I will not drive them out from before you in one year, lest the land become a desert, and the wild beasts of the field multiply against you.
30. Little by little I will drive them out before you, until you multiply and inherit the land.
31. And I will set your borders from the Red Sea to the Sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness to the River; for I will give the inhabitants of the land into your hands, that I may drive them out from before you.
32. You shall not make a covenant with them or with their gods.
33. They shall not dwell in your land, lest they make you sin against me; for if you serve their gods, it will certainly be a snare to you.