The Second Book of Moses: Exodus

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- Kapitel 23 -

“Do not lie about other people. Do not help someone who is guilty by lying about what happened.

Do not join with a group of people who are planning to do something evil. Do not tell the same lies they do and so keep the judge from deciding the case justly.

When a poor person is on trial, do not testify in his favor just because he is poor and you feel sorry for him.

If you see someone’s bull or donkey when it is wandering away loose, take it back to its owner even if the owner is your enemy.

If you see someone’s donkey that has fallen down because of its heavy load, help the owner to get the donkey up again even if he is someone who hates you. Do not just walk away without helping him.

Decide the cases of poor people who are on trial as fairly as you judge the cases of other people.

Do not accuse people falsely. Do not decide that innocent and righteous people should be killed because I will punish people who do such an evil thing.

Do not accept money that is a bribe because officials who accept bribes are not able to decide what is right to do, and they do not allow innocent people to be treated fairly.

Do not mistreat foreigners who live among you. You know how foreigners often feel because the Egyptians did not treat you well when you were foreigners there.

Sabbath Laws

(Leviticus 25:1–7; Deuteronomy 15:1–6)

For six years, plant seeds in your ground and gather the harvest.

But on the seventh year you must not plant anything. If things grow without your planting seeds, allow the poor people to harvest and eat the crops. If there are still crops left over, allow the wild animals to eat them. Do the same thing with your grapevine and your olive trees.

You may work for six days each week, but on the seventh day you must rest and not work. Also on the seventh day you must allow your work animals, your slaves, and the foreigners who live among you to rest and to become ready to work again.

Make certain that you obey everything that I have commanded you to do. Do not pray to other gods. Do not even mention their names.

The Three Feasts of Pilgrimage

(Leviticus 23:1–3)

Every year you must travel to three festivals to honor me.

The first one is the Festival of Bread with no Yeast. Celebrate it in the month of Aviv, which is the month in which you left Egypt. Celebrate it in the way that I commanded you; eat the bread for seven days. Always bring an offering when you come to worship me. Do not come empty-handed.

The second festival is the Festival of Harvest. During that festival you must offer to me the first parts of your crops that grow from the seeds that you planted. The third festival is the Festival of finished Harvest. That will be after you finish harvesting your grain, your grapes, and your fruit.

Every year, at each of these times, all the men must gather together to worship me, Yahweh God.

When you sacrifice an animal and offer it to me, you must not offer bread that has been baked with yeast. When you offer sacrifices, burn the fat from the animals on that same day so that no fat remains the next morning.

Each year, when you harvest your crops, take the best of what you harvest first, go to the place where you worship me, and give it to me, Yahweh God. When you kill a young animal, do not cook it by boiling it in its mother’s milk.”

God’s Angel to Lead

(Deuteronomy 7:12–26)

“I am going to send an angel ahead of you to guard you as you travel and to bring you safely to the place that I have prepared for you.

Pay attention to what he says and obey him. Do not rebel against him because he will have my authority and he will punish you if you rebel against him.

But if you pay attention to what he says and if you do all that I tell you to do, I will fight against all of your enemies.

My angel will go ahead of you and will take you to where the Amor, Heth, Periz, Canaan, Hiv, and Jebus people groups live, and I will completely get rid of them.

Do not bow down before their gods or worship them. Do not do the things that they think that their gods want them to do. Destroy their gods and smash to pieces their sacred stones.

You must worship me, Yahweh your God. If you do that, I will bless your food and water, and I will protect you from becoming sick.

No women in your land will have miscarriages, and no women will be unable to become pregnant. I will enable you to live a long time.

I will cause the people who oppose you to become very afraid of me. I will kill all of the people that you come close to. Then I will cause them to turn around and run away from you.

I will cause your enemies to become terrified. I will expel the Hiv, Canaan, and Heth people groups from your land.

I will not remove all of them in less than one year. If I did that, your land would become deserted, and there would be very many wild animals that would attack you.

I will remove those people groups slowly, a few at a time, until the number of your people increases and you are able to live everywhere in the land.

I will cause the borders of your land to extend from the Sea of Reeds in the southeast to the Mediterranean Sea in the northwest, and from the wilderness of Sinai in the southwest to the Euphrates River in the northeast of the country. I will give you the power to remove the people who live there so that you will remove them as you occupy more of the country.

You must not make any agreement with those people or with their gods.

Do not allow those people to live in your land in order that they do not cause you to sin against me. If you worship their gods, you will not be able to escape from worshiping them and sinning against me just as someone caught in a trap is unable to escape.”

“You shall not spread a false report. Don’t join your hand with the wicked to be a malicious witness.

“You shall not follow a crowd to do evil. You shall not testify in court to side with a multitude to pervert justice.

You shall not favor a poor man in his cause.

“If you meet your enemy’s ox or his donkey going astray, you shall surely bring it back to him again.

If you see the donkey of him who hates you fallen down under his burden, don’t leave him. You shall surely help him with it.

“You shall not deny justice to your poor people in their lawsuits.

“Keep far from a false charge, and don’t kill the innocent and righteous; for I will not justify the wicked.

“You shall take no bribe, for a bribe blinds those who have sight and perverts the words of the righteous.

“You shall not oppress an alien, for you know the heart of an alien, since you were aliens in the land of Egypt.

Sabbath Laws

(Leviticus 25:1–7; Deuteronomy 15:1–6)

“For six years you shall sow your land, and shall gather in its increase,

but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, that the poor of your people may eat; and what they leave the animal of the field shall eat. In the same way, you shall deal with your vineyard and with your olive grove.

“Six days you shall do your work, and on the seventh day you shall rest, that your ox and your donkey may have rest, and the son of your servant, and the alien may be refreshed.

“Be careful to do all things that I have said to you; and don’t invoke the name of other gods or even let them be heard out of your mouth.

The Three Feasts of Pilgrimage

(Leviticus 23:1–3)

“You shall observe a feast to me three times a year.

You shall observe the feast of unleavened bread. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, at the time appointed in the month Abib (for in it you came out of Egypt), and no one shall appear before me empty.

And the feast of harvest, the first fruits of your labors, which you sow in the field; and the feast of ingathering, at the end of the year, when you gather in your labors out of the field.

Three times in the year all your males shall appear before the Lord GOD.

“You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread. The fat of my feast shall not remain all night until the morning.

You shall bring the first of the first fruits of your ground into the house of the LORD your God. “You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.

God’s Angel to Lead

(Deuteronomy 7:12–26)

“Behold, I send an angel before you, to keep you by the way, and to bring you into the place which I have prepared.

Pay attention to him, and listen to his voice. Don’t provoke him, for he will not pardon your disobedience, for my name is in him.

But if you indeed listen to his voice, and do all that I speak, then I will be an enemy to your enemies, and an adversary to your adversaries.

For my angel shall go before you, and bring you in to the Amorite, the Hittite, the Perizzite, the Canaanite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite; and I will cut them off.

You shall not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor follow their practices, but you shall utterly overthrow them and demolish their pillars.

You shall serve the LORD your God, and he will bless your bread and your water, and I will take sickness away from among you.

No one will miscarry or be barren in your land. I will fulfill the number of your days.

I will send my terror before you, and will confuse all the people to whom you come, and I will make all your enemies turn their backs to you.

I will send the hornet before you, which will drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before you.

I will not drive them out from before you in one year, lest the land become desolate, and the animals of the field multiply against you.

Little by little I will drive them out from before you, until you have increased and inherit the land.

I will set your border from the Red Sea even to the sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness to the River; for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and you shall drive them out before you.

You shall make no covenant with them, nor with their gods.

They shall not dwell in your land, lest they make you sin against me, for if you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare to you.”