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Exodus 23

1“You must not take up a false report. Do not join hands with a guilty person to become a malicious witness. 2You must not follow the many in doing evil, and you must not testify in a dispute by turning aside after the many to pervert justice. 3You must not favor a poor person in that person's dispute.

4“When you meet your enemy's ox or donkey wandering, you must return it to him. 5When you see the donkey of someone who hates you lying under its load, you must not refrain from helping him; you must help him release it.

6“You must not pervert the justice due to your poor in a dispute. 7Keep far from a false charge. Do not kill an innocent or righteous person, for I will not acquit a guilty person. 8You must not take a bribe, for a bribe blinds those who see and twists the words of the righteous. 9You must not oppress a resident foreigner. You yourselves know the life of a resident foreigner, for you were resident foreigners in the land of Egypt.

10“For six years you will sow your land and gather its produce, 11but in the seventh you must let it rest and leave it, so that the poor of your people may eat; what they leave, the wild animals may eat. You must do the same with your vineyard and olive grove. 12Six days you will do your work, but on the seventh day you must cease, so that your ox and donkey may rest, and the son of your slave woman and the resident foreigner may be refreshed. 13Take care concerning everything I have told you. You must not invoke the name of other gods; it must not be heard from your mouth.

14“Three times in the year you must hold a festival for me. 15Keep the Festival of Unleavened Bread: for seven days you must eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, at the appointed time in the month of Abib, for in it you came out of Egypt. No one must appear before me empty-handed. 16Keep the Festival of Harvest, the firstfruits of your labor that you sow in the field, and the Festival of Ingathering at the year's end, when you gather in the fruit of your labor from the field. 17Three times in the year all your males must appear before the Lord Yahweh. 18You must not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven, and the fat of my festival offering must not remain overnight until morning. 19Bring the first of your ground's firstfruits to the house of Yahweh your God. You must not boil a young goat in its mother's milk.

20“Look, I am sending a messenger before you to guard you on the way and bring you to the place I have prepared. 21Be careful before him and listen to his voice. Do not rebel against him, for he will not forgive your rebellion, because my name is within him. 22But if you truly listen to his voice and do everything I speak, I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries. 23For my messenger will go before you and bring you to the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hivites, and Jebusites, and I will wipe them out. 24You must not bow down to their gods or serve them, or do as they do. You must completely demolish them and shatter their standing stones. 25You must serve Yahweh your God, and he will bless your bread and your water. I will remove sickness from among you. 26No one will miscarry or be barren in your land. I will fulfill the number of your days.

27“I will send my terror before you and throw into confusion every people among whom you come, and I will make all your enemies turn their backs to you. 28I will send the hornet before you, and it will drive out the Hivites, Canaanites, and Hittites before you. 29I will not drive them out before you in a single year, lest the land become desolate and the wild animals multiply against you. 30Little by little I will drive them out before you, until you become fruitful and possess the land. 31I will set your boundary from the Sea of Reeds to the sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness to the River. For I will give the land's inhabitants into your hand, and you will drive them out before you. 32You must not make a covenant with them or with their gods. 33They must not live in your land, lest they make you sin against me. For serving their gods will become a snare to you.”

Translation notes 11

23:1–3, 6–8 — Impartial judgment. The commands oppose false testimony, majority pressure, favoritism toward the poor, and denial of justice to the poor. “Pervert justice” supplies the legal object implied by the repeated turning-aside verb. The draft does not change “poor” in verse 3 to “great” to remove the tension.

23:5 — Release it. The Hebrew expression is difficult and uses a verb commonly meaning leave or abandon. Here it is understood as helping free the overloaded donkey, rather than abandoning the animal or its hostile owner.

23:9 — The life of a resident foreigner. The Hebrew says the foreigner's nephesh, the living self and experience. “You know what it is like” expresses the sense more idiomatically; a disembodied soul is not in view.

23:12–13 — Refreshed; invoke. The refreshment verb is related to the word for life or breath. Invoking another god's name concerns religious acknowledgment; the command is not interpreted here as banning the mere reporting of an idol's name.

23:17 — All your males. The pilgrimage requirement explicitly identifies males. The draft does not replace the group with all adults or imply that the verse forbids women from attending.

23:19 — A young goat. The command names boiling a kid in its mother's milk. Its original rationale is not given; later dietary interpretations are not inserted into the sentence.

23:20–21 — Messenger and name. This figure carries God's authority and presence, expressed by the name within him. The text does not identify him by a personal name or explicitly equate him with a later biblical figure.

23:23–24 — Wipe out; demolish. The promised removal of peoples and destruction of their religious objects are retained without softening. “Them” in verse 24 may refer to the gods as represented in their images, or their worship installations; no separate word for temples has been added.

23:25–26 — Blessing and days. The Hebrew moves from “he will bless” to “I will remove”; the shift is retained. The promises concerning sickness, pregnancy, and lifespan address Israel in this covenant setting, without an added universal timetable or guarantee for every later reader.

23:28 — The hornet. This rare word is traditionally understood as a hornet or wasp, possibly collective. Panic, discouragement, or pestilence are significant alternative interpretations in context. The draft retains the traditional image provisionally; it does not identify an insect species or a particular invading army.

23:31 — Seas and River. The sea of the Philistines is the Mediterranean, and the River is ordinarily understood as the Euphrates. “Sea of Reeds” follows the earlier Exodus rendering of Yam Suph; the verse does not establish a detailed modern border map.