Chapter 23

  Thou shalt not accept a false report; extend not thy hand to the wicked, to be an unrighteous witness.  

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  Thou shalt not follow the multitude for evil; neither shalt thou answer in a cause, to go after the multitude to pervert [judgment].  

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  Neither shalt thou favour a poor man in his cause.  

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  -- If thou meet thine enemy's ox or his ass going astray, thou shalt certainly bring it back to him.  

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  If thou see the ass of him that hateth thee lying under its burden, beware of leaving [it] to him: thou shalt certainly loosen [it] with him.  

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

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  Thou shalt keep far from the cause of falsehood; and the innocent and righteous slay not; for I will not justify the wicked.  

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  And thou shalt take no bribe; for the bribe blindeth those whose eyes are open, and perverteth the words of the righteous.  

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  And the stranger thou shalt not oppress; for ye know the spirit of the stranger, for ye have been strangers in the land of Egypt.  

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  And six years thou shalt sow thy land, and gather in its produce;  

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  but in the seventh thou shalt let it rest and lie [fallow], that the poor of thy people may eat [of it]; and what they leave, the beasts of the field shall eat. In like manner thou shalt deal with thy vineyard, and with thine olive-tree.  

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  -- Six days thou shalt do thy work, but 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.  

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  And ye shall be on your guard as to everything that I have said unto you; and shall make no mention of the name of other gods -- it shall not be heard in thy mouth.  

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  Thrice in the year thou shalt celebrate a feast to me.  

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  Thou shalt keep the feast of unleavened bread, (thou shalt eat unleavened bread seven days, as I have commanded thee, in the time appointed of the month Abib; for in it thou camest out from Egypt; and none shall appear in my presence empty;)  

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  and the feast of harvest, the first-fruits of thy labours which thou hast sown in the field, and the feast of in-gathering, at the end of the year, when thou gatherest in thy labours out of the field.  

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  Three times in the year all thy males shall appear in the presence of the Lord Jehovah.  

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

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  The first of the first-fruits of thy land thou shalt bring into the house of Jehovah thy God. Thou shalt not boil a kid in its mother's milk.  

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

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  Be careful in his presence, and hearken unto his voice: do not provoke him, for he will not forgive your transgressions; for my name is in him.  

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  But if thou shalt diligently hearken unto his voice, and do all that I shall say, then I will be an enemy to thine enemies, and an adversary to thine adversaries.  

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  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.  

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  Thou shalt not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do after their deeds; but thou shalt utterly destroy them, and utterly shatter their statues.  

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  And ye shall serve Jehovah your God; and he shall bless thy bread and thy water; and I will take sickness away from thy midst.  

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  There shall nothing cast their young, nor be barren, in thy land; the number of thy days will I fulfil.  

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  I will send my fear before thee, and confound every people to which thou comest, and will make all thine enemies turn their back to thee.  

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

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  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.  

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  By little and little I will drive them out from before thee, until thou art fruitful, and possess the land.  

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  And I will set thy bounds from the Red Sea even unto the sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness unto the river; for I will give the inhabitants of the land into your hand, that thou mayest dispossess them from before thee.  

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

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  They shall not dwell in thy land, lest they make thee sin against me; for if thou serve their gods, it is sure to be a snare unto thee.  

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