Laws of Justice
Exodus 23“You must not spread a false report. Don’t join your hand with the wicked to be a malicious witness.
“You must not follow a crowd to do evil. You must not testify in court to side with a multitude to pervert justice. You must not favor a poor man in his cause.
“If you encounter your enemy’s ox or donkey going astray, you are to bring-bring it back to him again. If you see that the donkey of someone who hates you has fallen down under his burden, you must not leave him. You must help-help him with it.
“You must not deny justice to your poor people in their lawsuits.
“Keep far from a false charge, and don’t kill the innocent and righteous; for I will not justify the wicked.
“You must accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds those who have sight and perverts the words of the righteous.
“You must not oppress a foreigner, because y’all know the soul of an foreigner, since y’all were foreigners in the land of Egypt.
Sabbath Laws
“For six years you are to sow your land and gather in its produce, but the seventh year you must let it rest and lie fallow, that the poor of your people may eat; and what they leave the animal of the field may eat. You are to do the same with your vineyard and with your olive grove.
“Six days you are to do your work, and on the seventh day you are to rest, so that your ox and your donkey may have rest, and the son of your servant, and the resident foreigner may be refreshed.
“Y’all must be careful to do all things that I have said to y’all. Y’all must not invoke the name of other gods or even let them be heard out of your lips.
“You are to observe a feast to me three times a year. You are to observe the feast of unleavened bread. Seven days you are to eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, at the time appointed in the month Abib (for in it you came out of Egypt), and no one is to appear before me empty. And the feast of harvest, the first fruits of your labors, which you sow in the field; and the feast of ingathering, at the end of the year, when you gather in your labors out of the field. Three times in the year all your males must appear before Lord YHWH.
“You must not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread. The fat of my feast must not remain all night until the morning.
You are to bring the first of the first fruits of your ground into the house of YHWH your God.
“You must not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.
God Sends an Angel to Prepare the Way
“Look, I send an angel before you, to keep you by the way, and to bring you into the place which I have prepared. You are to pay attention to him and listen to his voice. Don’t provoke him, for he will not pardon y’all’s rebellion, for my name is in him. But if you listen-listen to ʜɪꜱ voice, and do all that I speak, then I will be an enemy to your enemies, and an adversary to your adversaries. For my angel will go before you, and bring you in to the Amorite, the Hittite, the Perizzite, the Canaanite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite, and I will cut them off. You must not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor follow their practices, but you must overthrow-overthrow them and demolish-demolish their pillars. Y’all are to serve YHWH, y’all’s God, and ʜᴇ will bless your bread and your water, and I will take sickness away from among you. No one will miscarry or be barren in your land. I will fulfill the number of your days. I will send my terror before you, and will confuse all the people to whom you come, and I will make all your enemies turn their backs to you. I will send the hornet before you, which will drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before you. I will not drive them out from before you in one year, lest the land become desolate, and the animals of the field multiply against you. Little by little I will drive them out from before you, until you have increased and inherit the land. I will set your borders from the Red Sea to the sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness to the River. I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into y’all’s hand, and you will drive them out before you. You must no make any covenant with them or with their gods. They must not dwell in your land, or they will cause you sin against me, for if you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare to you.”