Justice and the three festivals
Do not spread false reports. Do not help a guilty person by being a malicious witness. Do not follow the crowd in doing wrong. When you give testimony in a lawsuit, do not pervert justice by siding with the crowd, and do not show favouritism to a poor person in a lawsuit. If you come across your enemy's ox or donkey wandering off, be sure to return it. If you see the donkey of someone who hates you fallen down under its load, do not leave it there; be sure you help them with it. Do not deny justice to your poor people in their lawsuits. Have nothing to do with a false charge and do not put an innocent or honest person to death, for I will not acquit the guilty. Do not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds those who see and twists the words of the innocent. Do not oppress a foreigner; you yourselves know how it feels to be foreigners, because you were foreigners in Egypt. For six years you are to sow your fields and harvest the crops, but during the seventh year let the land lie unploughed and unused. Then the poor among your people may get food from it, and the wild animals may eat what is left. Do the same with your vineyard and your olive grove. Six days do your work, but on the seventh day do not work, so that your ox and your donkey may rest, and so that the slave born in your household and the foreigner living among you may be refreshed. 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 times a year you are to celebrate a festival to me. Celebrate the Festival of Unleavened Bread; for seven days eat bread made without yeast, as I commanded you. Do this at the appointed time in the month of Aviv, for in that month you came out of Egypt. No one is to appear before me empty-handed. Celebrate the Festival of Harvest with the firstfruits of the crops you sow in your field. Celebrate the Festival of Ingathering at the end of the year, when you gather in your crops from the field. Three times a year all the men are to appear before the Sovereign Lord. Do not offer the blood of a sacrifice to me along with anything containing yeast. The fat of my festival offerings must not be kept until morning. Bring the best of the firstfruits of your soil to the house of the Lord your God. Do not cook a young goat in its mother's milk.
Do not spread false reports. Do not help a guilty person by being a malicious witness.
Thou shalt not raise a false report: put not thine hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness.
Do not follow the crowd in doing wrong. When you give testimony in a lawsuit, do not pervert justice by siding with the crowd,
Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil; neither shalt thou speak in a cause to decline after many to wrest judgment:
and do not show favouritism to a poor person in a lawsuit.
Neither shalt thou countenance a poor man in his cause.
If you come across your enemy's ox or donkey wandering off, be sure to return it.
If thou meet thine enemy’s ox or his ass going astray, thou shalt surely bring it back to him again.
If you see the donkey of someone who hates you fallen down under its load, do not leave it there; be sure you help them with it.
If thou see the ass of him that hateth thee lying under his burden, and wouldest forbear to help him, thou shalt surely help with him.
Do not deny justice to your poor people in their lawsuits.
Thou shalt not wrest the judgment of thy poor in his cause.
Have nothing to do with a false charge and do not put an innocent or honest person to death, for I will not acquit the guilty.
Keep thee far from a false matter; and the innocent and righteous slay thou not: for I will not justify the wicked.
Do not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds those who see and twists the words of the innocent.
And thou shalt take no gift: for the gift blindeth the wise, and perverteth the words of the righteous.
Do not oppress a foreigner; you yourselves know how it feels to be foreigners, because you were foreigners in Egypt.
Also thou shalt not oppress a stranger: for ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.
For six years you are to sow your fields and harvest the crops,
And six years thou shalt sow thy land, and shalt gather in the fruits thereof:
but during the seventh year let the land lie unploughed and unused. Then the poor among your people may get food from it, and the wild animals may eat what is left. Do the same with your vineyard and your olive grove.
But the seventh year thou shalt let it rest and lie still; that the poor of thy people may eat: and what they leave the beasts of the field shall eat. In like manner thou shalt deal with thy vineyard, and with thy oliveyard.
Six days do your work, but on the seventh day do not work, so that your ox and your donkey may rest, and so that the slave born in your household and the foreigner living among you may be refreshed.
Six days thou shalt do thy work, and on the seventh day thou shalt rest: that thine ox and thine ass may rest, and the son of thy handmaid, and the stranger, may be refreshed.
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.
And in all things that I have said unto you be circumspect: and make no mention of the name of other gods, neither let it be heard out of thy mouth.
Three times a year you are to celebrate a festival to me.
Three times thou shalt keep a feast unto me in the year.
Celebrate the Festival of Unleavened Bread; for seven days eat bread made without yeast, as I commanded you. Do this at the appointed time in the month of Aviv, for in that month you came out of Egypt. No one is to appear before me empty-handed.
Thou shalt keep the feast of unleavened bread: (thou shalt eat unleavened bread seven days, as I commanded thee, in the time appointed of the month Abib; for in it thou camest out from Egypt: and none shall appear before me empty:)
Celebrate the Festival of Harvest with the firstfruits of the crops you sow in your field. Celebrate the Festival of Ingathering at the end of the year, when you gather in your crops from the field.
And the feast of harvest, the firstfruits of thy labours, which thou hast sown in the field: and the feast of ingathering, which is in the end of the year, when thou hast gathered in thy labours out of the field.
Three times a year all the men are to appear before the Sovereign Lord.
Three times in the year all thy males shall appear before the LORD God.
Do not offer the blood of a sacrifice to me along with anything containing yeast. The fat of my festival offerings must not be kept until morning.
Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread; neither shall the fat of my sacrifice remain until the morning.
Bring the best of the firstfruits of your soil to the house of the Lord your God. Do not cook a young goat in its mother's milk.
The first of the firstfruits of thy land thou shalt bring into the house of the LORD thy God. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother’s milk.
Promise and warning
See, I am sending an angel ahead of you to guard you along the way and to bring you to the place I have prepared. Pay attention to him and listen to what he says. Do not rebel against him; he will not forgive your rebellion, since my Name is in him. If you listen carefully to what he says and do all that I say, I will be an enemy to your enemies and will oppose those who oppose you. My angel will go ahead of you and bring you into the land of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hivites and Jebusites, and I will wipe them out. Do not bow down before their gods or worship them or follow their practices. You must demolish them and break their sacred stones to pieces. Worship the Lord your God, and his blessing will be on your food and water. I will take away sickness from among you, and none will miscarry or be barren in your land. I will give you a full life span. 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 and run. I will send the hornet ahead of you to drive the Hivites, Canaanites and Hittites out of your way. But I will not drive them out in a single year, because the land would become desolate and the wild animals too numerous for you. Little by little I will drive them out before you, until you have increased enough to take possession of the land. I will establish your borders from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea, and from the desert to the Euphrates River. I will give into your hands the people who live in the land, and you will drive them out before you. Do not make a covenant with them or with their gods. Do not let them live in your land or they will cause you to sin against me, because the worship of their gods will certainly be a snare to you.
See, I am sending an angel ahead of you to guard you along the way and to bring you to the place I have prepared.
Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared.
Pay attention to him and listen to what he says. Do not rebel against him; he will not forgive your rebellion, since my Name is in him.
Beware of him, and obey his voice, provoke him not; for he will not pardon your transgressions: for my name is in him.
If you listen carefully to what he says and do all that I say, I will be an enemy to your enemies and will oppose those who oppose you.
But if thou shalt indeed obey his voice, and do all that I speak; then I will be an enemy unto thine enemies, and an adversary unto thine adversaries.
My angel will go ahead of you and bring you into the land of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hivites and Jebusites, and I will wipe them out.
For mine Angel shall go before thee, and bring thee in unto the Amorites, and the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Canaanites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites: and I will cut them off.
Do not bow down before their gods or worship them or follow their practices. You must demolish them and break their sacred stones to pieces.
Thou shalt not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do after their works: but thou shalt utterly overthrow them, and quite break down their images.
Worship the Lord your God, and his blessing will be on your food and water. I will take away sickness from among you,
And ye shall serve the LORD your God, and he shall bless thy bread, and thy water; and I will take sickness away from the midst of thee.
and none will miscarry or be barren in your land. I will give you a full life span.
There shall nothing cast their young, nor be barren, in thy land: the number of thy days I will fulfil.
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 and run.
I will send my fear before thee, and will destroy all the people to whom thou shalt come, and I will make all thine enemies turn their backs unto thee.
I will send the hornet ahead of you to drive the Hivites, Canaanites and Hittites out of your way.
And I will send hornets before thee, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before thee.
But I will not drive them out in a single year, because the land would become desolate and the wild animals too numerous for you.
I will not drive them out from before thee in one year; lest the land become desolate, and the beast of the field multiply against thee.
Little by little I will drive them out before you, until you have increased enough to take possession of the land.
By little and little I will drive them out from before thee, until thou be increased, and inherit the land.
I will establish your borders from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea, and from the desert to the Euphrates River. I will give into your hands the people who live in the land, and you will drive them out before you.
And I will set thy bounds from the Red sea even unto the sea of the Philistines, and from the desert unto the river: for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand; and thou shalt drive them out before thee.
Do not make a covenant with them or with their gods.
Thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor with their gods.
Do not let them live in your land or they will cause you to sin against me, because the worship of their gods will certainly be a snare to you.
They shall not dwell in thy land, lest they make thee sin against me: for if thou serve their gods, it will surely be a snare unto thee.