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Justice for All

You shall not spread a false report. You shall not join hands with the wicked to act as a malicious witness. ²You shall not follow a majority in wrongdoing; when you bear witness in a lawsuit, you shall not side with the majority so as to pervert justice; ³nor shall you be partial to the poor in a lawsuit.

⁴ When you come upon your enemy’s ox or donkey going astray, you shall bring it back.

⁵ When you see the donkey of one who hates you lying under its burden and you would hold back from setting it free, you must help to set it free.

⁶ You shall not pervert the justice due to your poor in their lawsuits. ⁷Keep far from a false charge, and do not kill the innocent and those in the right, for I will not acquit the guilty. ⁸You shall take no bribe, for a bribe blinds the officials, and subverts the cause of those who are in the right.

⁹ You shall not oppress a resident alien; you know the heart of an alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.

Sabbatical Year and Sabbath

¹⁰ For six years you shall sow your land and gather in its yield; ¹¹but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, so that the poor of your people may eat; and what they leave the wild animals may eat. You shall do the same with your vineyard, and with your olive orchard.

¹² Six days you shall do your work, but on the seventh day you shall rest, so that your ox and your donkey may have relief, and your homeborn slave and the resident alien may be refreshed. ¹³Be attentive to all that I have said to you. Do not invoke the names of other gods; do not let them be heard on your lips.

The Annual Festivals

¹⁴ Three times in the year you shall hold a festival for me. ¹⁵You shall observe the festival of unleavened bread; as I commanded you, you shall eat unleavened bread for seven days at the appointed time in the month of Abib, for in it you came out of Egypt.

No one shall appear before me empty-handed.

¹⁶ You shall observe the festival of harvest, of the first fruits of your labor, of what you sow in the field. You shall observe the festival of ingathering at the end of the year, when you gather in from the field the fruit of your labor. ¹⁷Three times in the year all your males shall appear before the Lord G od.

¹⁸ You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with anything leavened, or let the fat of my festival remain until the morning.

¹⁹ The choicest of the first fruits of your ground you shall bring into the house of the L ord your God.

You shall not boil a kid in its mother’s milk.

The Conquest of Canaan Promised

²⁰ I am going to send an angel in front of you, to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place that I have prepared. ²¹Be attentive to him and listen to his voice; do not rebel against him, for he will not pardon your transgression; for my name is in him.

²² But if you listen attentively to his voice and do all that I say, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and a foe to your foes.

²³ When my angel goes in front of you, and brings you to the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, and I blot them out, ²⁴you shall not bow down to their gods, or worship them, or follow their practices, but you shall utterly demolish them and break their pillars in pieces. ²⁵You shall worship the L ord your God, and I will bless your bread and your water; and I will take sickness away from among you. ²⁶No one shall miscarry or be barren in your land; I will fulfill the number of your days. ²⁷I will send my terror in front of you, and will throw into confusion all the people against whom you shall come, and I will make all your enemies turn their backs to you. ²⁸And I will send the pestilence in front of you, which shall drive out the Hivites, the Canaanites, and the Hittites from before you. ²⁹I will not drive them out from before you in one year, or the land would become desolate and the wild animals would multiply against you. ³⁰Little by little I will drive them out from before you, until you have increased and possess the land. ³¹I will set your borders from the Red Sea to the sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness to the Euphrates; for I will hand over to you the inhabitants of the land, and you shall drive them out before you. ³²You shall make no covenant with them and their gods. ³³They shall not live in your land, or they will make you sin against me; for if you worship their gods, it will surely be a snare to you.

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Exodus 23:14. Three times shalt thou keep a feast. It is strange that Moses, who elsewhere enumerates several feast-days, should here only command them to appear in God’s presence thrice a year. Where then is the feast of trumpets and the day of atonement? for undoubtedly all were to be celebrated at Jerusalem. In the first place, it is to be observed that the principal ones, to which the greater honor appertained, are here mentioned. Secondly, because the three holidays in the seventh month were almost continuous, (it is probable ³⁵⁸³⁵⁸     Added from Fr. ) that some indulgence was given them, lest they should be absent from their homes the whole month; for at the beginning of the month the trumpets sounded, on the tenth day was the solemn fast, and on the fifteenth they began to dwell in the booths. If the necessity of remaining in Jerusalem had been imposed on all, so long a stay would have been burdensome. But, if they chose to be present from the beginning to the end, still there would have been only one journey, which is named after the most remarkable day. And certainly ³⁵⁹³⁵⁹     רגלים and פעמים each signify the feet, in their primary sense; and each are used, but the latter more commonly, for times, as when we say, “so many times.” — W
   It is so used in Deuteronomy 1:2, and 16:16.
   For this critical sentence, the following is substituted in Fr., “Ainsi trois festes y eussent este comprises; pource qu’ils ne fussent point retournez jusques a ce qu’elles eussent este aceomplies;” thus, three festivals would have been comprised in it; because they would not have returned until they were all completed. the word רגלים, raglim, which Moses uses, means, metaphorically, rather journeys than times, although I allow that פעמים, phagnemim, which signifies times, is used in Deuteronomy in a similar sense. At any rate, it appears that God spared His people, when prescribed only three necessary convocations, lest the fathers of families and their children should be wearied by the expense and trouble of them, since he approves of no service which does not proceed from a cheerful heart.

19. Thou shalt not seethe a kid. The threefold repetition of the command reminds us that a serious matter is spoken of, whereas it would be a light and almost frivolous one, if, as some suppose, it is merely the prohibition of a somewhat unwholesome food. But the Jews, not considering its intent, and affecting sanctity, as they do, in trifling puerilities, dare not taste of cheese together with kid, or lamb’s flesh, until they have well cleaned their teeth. I have no doubt, however, but that this prohibition relates to the sacrifices, for in the first passage quoted, it is added in connection with the offering of the first-fruits; and in the second, we read as follows: “The first of the first-fruits of thy land thou shalt bring unto the house of the Lord thy God. Nor shalt thou seethe a kid in his mother’s milk;” and so also in the third passage: “Ye shall not eat of any thing that dieth of itself, etc., for thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God; nor shalt thou seethe a kid in his mother’s milk.” I allow indeed that Moses sometimes mixes together precepts respecting different things; but this running context shews that this precept is delivered among the ceremonies, and must therefore be reckoned to be a part of the legal service. Whence I conclude, that the people are not only interdicted from eating this sort of food, as if they were to partake of flesh steeped in blood; but that they should not pollute the sacrifices by the carnal mixture. It is however probable, that meat seasoned with milk was accounted a delicacy; but inasmuch as they might grow cruel, if they ate of a lamb or kid in its mother’s milk, God forbade to be offered to Himself, what was not allowable even in their common meals. The exposition of some, that kids were excluded from their tables until they were weaned, is not agreeable to reason; because they then begin to have a goatish flavor. But the reason is a very appropriate one, i.e., that God would not admit a monstrous thing in His sacrifices, that the flesh of the young should be cooked in its mother’s milk, and thus, as it were, in its own blood.

³⁵⁸ Added from Fr.

³⁵⁹ רגלים and פעמים each signify the feet, in their primary sense; and each are used, but the latter more commonly, for times, as when we say, “so many times.” — W It is so used in Deuteronomy 1:2, and 16:16. For this critical sentence, the following is substituted in Fr., “Ainsi trois festes y eussent este comprises; pource qu’ils ne fussent point retournez jusques a ce qu’elles eussent este aceomplies;” thus, three festivals would have been comprised in it; because they would not have returned until they were all completed.