Read the Bible: Exodus 23

The header above this section in the New American Standard Bible says Various Laws. It works but you could describe all of 21, 22 and 23 as various. There is more to explain in this chapter than in 22 so here we go.

Exodus 23

“You shall not share a false report: do not put your hand in with the wicked to be a malicious witness.

2 You shall not follow a crowd to do evil; do not side with the many in a lawsuit to pervert justice,

3 Nor show favoritism to a poor man in his lawsuit. .

4 If you meet your enemy’s ox or donkey going astray, you shall surely bring it back to him again.

5 If you see the donkey of one that hates you lying under his burden, do not leave it there; you surely must help him.

6 You shall not pervert the justice of the poor in his lawsuit. .

7 Keep yourself far away from a false matter; Do not kill the innocent and the just, for I will not justify the wicked.

8 Do not accept a gift, for the gift blinds the wise, and perverts the words of the righteous.

9 You shall not oppress a stranger: for you know the heart of a stranger, seeing as you were strangers in the land of Egypt.

10 Six years you shall sow your land, and shalt gather in the fruits of it:

11 But the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie still; that the poor of your people may eat: and what they leave the animals of the field will eat. In like manner you shall deal with your vineyard and olive grove.

12 Six days you shall do your work, and on the seventh day you shall rest: that your ox and your donkey may rest, and the son of your handmaid, and the stranger may be refreshed.

13 Pay attention to all I have said to you: and make no mention of the name of other gods, neither let it be heard out of your  mouth.

14 Three times a year you shall keep a feast to me. 

15 You shall keep the feast of unleavened bread: (you shall eat unleavened bread seven days, as I commanded, in the time appointed of the month Abib; for in it you came out from Egypt: no one is to appear before me empty handed;)

16 And the feast of harvest, the firstfruits of your labor which you have sown in the field: and the feast of ingathering, which is at the end of the year, when you have gathered in your labors out of the field.

17 Three times each year all your males shall appear before the LORD God.

18 You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread; neither shall the fat of my sacrifice remain until the morning.

19 The first of the firstfruits of your land you shall bring into the house of the LORD your God. You shall not boil a young goat in his mother’s milk.

20 Behold, I send an Angel before you, to keep you in the way and to bring you into the place which I have prepared.

21 Beware of him, and obey his voice, do not provoke him; for he will not pardon your transgressions: for my name is in him.

22 But if you shall indeed obey his voice, and do all that I speak; then I will be an enemy to your enemies, and an adversary to your adversaries.

23 For my Angel shall go before you, and bring you in to the Amorites, and the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Canaanites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites: and I will cut them off.

24 You shall not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do after their works: but you shall utterly overthrow them, and break their sacred pillars to pieces.

25 And you shall serve the LORD your God, and he shall bless your bread, and your water; and I will take sickness away from the midst of you.

26 No woman will miscarry their young nor be childless in your land: I will give you the full number of your days. 

27 I will send my fear before you, and will destroy all the people you are coming to, and I will make all your enemies turn their backs to you.

28 I will send hornets before you, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before you.

29 I will not drive them out from before you in one year; the land would become desolate, and the wild animals multiply against you.

30 Little by little I will drive them out from before you, until you have increased and inherit the land.

31 And I will set your boundaries from the Red sea to the sea of the Philistines, and from the desert unto the Euphrates river: for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand; and you shall drive them out.

32 You shall make no covenant with them, nor with their gods.

33 They shall not dwell in your land, or else they will make you sin against me: for if you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare for you.”

See also: ESV, HCSB, NASB, NIV

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