Laws about justice
1You shall not spread a false report. Do not join hands with the guilty by being a malicious witness. 2You shall not follow the crowd in wrongdoing. When you testify in a lawsuit, do not pervert justice by siding with the crowd, 3and do not show favoritism to a poor person in his lawsuit. 4If you come across your enemy’s ox or donkey wandering off, you must return it to him. 5If you see the donkey of someone who hates you lying helpless under its load, do not leave it there; you must help him with it. 6You shall not deny justice to your poor people in their lawsuits. 7Keep far from a false accusation, and do not put an innocent or righteous person to death, for I will not acquit the guilty. 8You shall not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds those who see clearly and twists the words of the righteous. 9You shall not oppress a foreigner; you yourselves know how it feels to be a foreigner, since you were foreigners in the land of Egypt.
The sabbath year and the sabbath day
10For six years you are to sow your land and gather its harvest, 11but in the seventh year let the land rest and lie unplowed, so the poor among your people may eat from it, and whatever they leave the wild animals may eat. Do the same with your vineyard and your olive grove. 12Six days you are to 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 servant and the foreigner may be refreshed. 13Pay attention to everything I have said to you. Do not invoke the names of other gods; do not let them be heard on your lips.
The three yearly festivals
14Three times a year you are to celebrate a festival to me. 15Keep the Festival of Unleavened Bread. For seven days eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, at the appointed time in the month of Abib, for that is when you came out of Egypt. No one is to appear before me empty-handed. 16Keep the Festival of Harvest, with the firstfruits of what you sow in the field. Keep the Festival of Ingathering at the end of the year, when you gather in your produce from the field. 17Three times a year all your males are to appear before the Lord Yahweh. 18Do not offer the blood of my sacrifice together with anything leavened, and do not let the fat of my festival offering remain until morning. 19Bring the best of the firstfruits of your soil to the house of Yahweh your God. Do not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk.
The promise of the angel and the land
20See, I am sending an angel ahead of you, to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place I have prepared. 21Pay attention to him and listen to his voice; do not defy him, for he will not forgive your rebellion — my name is in him. 22But if you truly listen to his voice and do everything I say, I will be an enemy to your enemies and a foe to your foes. 23My angel will go ahead of you and bring you to the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, and I will wipe them out. 24Do not bow down to their gods or serve them, and do not follow their practices. You must demolish them completely and smash their sacred pillars to pieces. 25Serve Yahweh your God, and he will bless your bread and your water, and I will remove sickness from among you. 26No woman in your land will miscarry or be barren, and I will give you a full lifespan. 27I will send my terror ahead of you and throw into confusion every people you encounter, and I will make all your enemies turn their backs and run. 28I will send hornets ahead of you to drive out the Hivites, the Canaanites, and the Hittites before you. 29I will not drive them out before you in a single year, or the land would become desolate and the wild animals too numerous for you. 30Little by little I will drive them out before you, until you have grown numerous enough to take possession of the land. 31I will set your borders from the Sea of Reeds to the sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness to the Euphrates. I will hand over to you the inhabitants of the land, and you will drive them out before you. 32You shall not make a covenant with them or with their gods. 33They must not stay in your land, or they will make you sin against me; for if you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare to you.”
