Truth and Fair Witness
23 1 You shall not spread a false report. Do not join hands with the wicked to become a malicious witness.
Protecting the Weak and the Stranger
2 Do not follow the crowd in doing wrong. When you testify in a dispute, do not pervert justice by siding with the many, 3 and do not show favoritism to a poor person in his lawsuit.
4 If you come upon your enemy's ox or his donkey wandering off, you must surely bring it back to him. 5 If you see the donkey of someone who hates you fallen down under its load, do not leave it there; you must surely help him with it.
6 Do not deny justice to your poor in their lawsuits. 7 Stay well away from false charges, and do not kill the innocent and the righteous, for I will not acquit the guilty.
8 Do not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds the clear-sighted and twists the words of the righteous.
9 Do not oppress a foreigner. You yourselves know the heart of a foreigner, for you were foreigners in the land of Egypt.
Rest for the Land
10 For six years you shall sow your land and gather its produce,
Rest for People and Animals
11 but in the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, so that the poor among your people may eat; and what they leave, the wild animals may eat. Do the same with your vineyard and your olive grove.
12 Six days you shall do your work, but on the seventh day you shall rest, so that your ox and your donkey may rest, and the son of your female servant and the foreigner may be refreshed.
13 Be careful to do everything I have said to you. Do not invoke the names of other gods; do not let them be heard on your lips.
Three Festivals Before Your Father
14 Three times a year you shall hold a festival to me.
Unleavened Bread, Harvest, and Ingathering
15 Keep the Festival of Unleavened Bread. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, at the appointed time in the month of Aviv, for that is when you came out of Egypt. No one is to appear before me empty-handed. 1 1 v15 Aviv is the spring month when the grain ripens — later called Nisan. Israel came out of Egypt in this month. 16 Keep also the Festival of Harvest, the firstfruits of your labors, of what you sow in the field; and the Festival of Ingathering at the end of the year, when you gather in your produce from the field. 17 Three times a year all your males shall appear before the Sovereign Father.
18 Do not offer the blood of my sacrifice with anything leavened, and the fat of my festival offering must not remain until morning.
19 Bring the best of the firstfruits of your soil to the house of your Father. Do not cook a young goat in its mother's milk.
The Messenger Sent Ahead
20 See, I am sending a messenger before you to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place I have prepared.
Our Father Fights for You
21 Pay attention to him and do what he says. Do not rebel against him, for he will not pardon your sin, since my name is in him. 2 2 v21 'My name is in him' means the messenger carries God's full authority and presence.
22 But if you listen carefully to his voice and do all that I say, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries. 23 For my messenger will go before you and bring you to the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, and I will wipe them out.
24 Do not bow down to their gods or serve them or follow their practices. Instead, you shall utterly demolish them and smash their sacred pillars to pieces.
25 You shall serve your Father, and he will bless your bread and your water, and I will remove sickness from among you. 26 None will miscarry or be barren in your land. I will give you a full span of life.
27 I will send my terror ahead of you and throw into confusion every nation you encounter. I will make all your enemies turn their backs to you. 28 I will send the hornet ahead of you to drive out the Hivites, the Canaanites, and the Hittites before you. 3 3 v28 'The hornet' may mean literal hornets or the dread and confusion God sends ahead of Israel.
29 I will not drive them out before you in a single year, or the land would become desolate and the wild animals too many for you. 30 Little by little I will drive them out before you, until you have increased enough to take possession of the land.
31 I will set your borders from the Sea of Reeds 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, and you will drive them out before you. 4 4 v31 'Sea of Reeds' = the Red Sea; 'Sea of the Philistines' = the Mediterranean; 'the River' = the Euphrates. 32 Do not make a covenant with them or with their gods. 33 They must not dwell in your land, or they will make you sin against me; for if you serve their gods, it will surely become a snare to you.