Exodus 23 · Parashat Mishpatim

Thou shalt not raise a false report: put not thy hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness.

Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil; neither shalt thou speak in a cause to incline after a multitude to pervert justice:

nor shalt thou favour a poor man in his cause.

If thou meet thy enemy’s ox or his ass going astray, thou shalt surely bring it back to him again.

If thou see the ass of him that hates thee lying under its burden, and wouldst forbear to unload it, thou shalt surely unload it with him.

Thou shalt not pervert the judgment of thy poor in his cause.

Keep thee far from a false matter; and the innocent and righteous slay thou not: for I will not justify the wicked.

And thou shalt take no bribe: for the bribe blinds the wise, and perverts the words of the righteous.

Also thou shalt not oppress a stranger: for you know the heart of a stranger, seeing you were strangers in the land of Miżrayim.

And six years thou shalt sow thy land, and shalt gather in its fruits:

but the seventh year thou shalt let it rest and lie fallow; 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 olive grove.

Six days thou shalt do thy work, and on the seventh day thou shalt rest: that thy ox and thy ass may rest; and the son of thy handmaid, and the stranger, may be refreshed.

And all things that I have said to you be mindful of: and make no mention of the name of other gods, neither let it be heard out of thy mouth.

Three times thou shalt keep a feast to me in the year.

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 Aviv; for in it thou didst come out from Miżrayim: and none shall appear before me empty:)

and the feast of harvest, the firstfruits of thy labours, which thou hast sown in the field: and the feast of ingathering, which is at the end of the year, when thou hast gathered in thy labours out of the field.

Three times in the year all thy males shall appear before the Lord God.

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

The first of the firstfruits of thy land thou shalt bring to the house of the Lord thy God. Thou shalt not boil a kid in its mother’s milk.

Behold, I send an angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee to the place which I have prepared.

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

But if thou shalt indeed obey his voice, and do all that I speak; then I will be an enemy to thy enemies, and an adversary to thy adversaries.

For my angel shall go before thee, and bring thee in to the Emori, and the Ḥitti, and the Perizzi, and the Kena῾ani, and the Ḥivvi, and the Yevusi; and I will cut them off.

Thou shalt not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do after their works: but thou shalt utterly overthrow them, and completely break down their images.

And you 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.

None shall miscarry, nor be barren, in thy land: the number of thy days I will fulfill.

I will send my fear before thee, and will destroy all the people to whom thou shalt come, and I will make all thy enemies turn their backs to thee.

And I will send hornets before thee, which shall drive out the Ḥivvi, the Kena῾ani, and the Ḥitti, from before thee.

I will not drive them out from before thee in one year; lest the land become desolate, and the wild beasts multiply against thee.

Little by little I will drive them out from before thee, until thou be increased, and inherit the land.

And I will set thy bounds from the Sea of Suf even to the Sea of the Pelishtim, and from the desert to the river: for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand; and thou shalt drive them out before thee.

Thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor with their gods.

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 to thee.