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spread false reports. Do not join hands with a wicked man to be a malicious witness.
2 “Do not follow the crowd in doing wrong. When you testify in a lawsuit, do not side with the crowd and pervert justice. 3 Do not show favouritism to a poor man in his lawsuit.
4 “If you come across your enemy’s ox or his donkey wandering off, take it back to him. 5 If you see the donkey of someone who hates you fallen down under its load, do not leave it there, be sure to help him with it.
6 “Do not deny justice to your poor people in their lawsuits. 7 Have nothing to do with a false accusation, and do not put an innocent or upright person to death, for I will not acquit the guilty.
8 “Do not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds those who see and twists the words of the righteous.
9 “Do not oppress a foreign resident, for you yourselves know how it feels to be foreigners, because you were foreigners in the land of Egypt.
10 “For six years you may sow your land and gather its produce, 11 but the seventh year you are to let the land lie unploughed and unused. Then the poor among your people may get food from it, and the wild animals may eat what they leave. Do the same with your vineyard and your olive grove.
12 “Six days you shall do your work, but rest on the seventh day, so that your ox and your donkey may rest, and the son of your female slave and the foreign resident may also be refreshed.
13 “Be careful to do everything that I have said to you. Do not invoke the names of other gods; do not let them be heard on your lips.
14 “Three times in each year you are to celebrate a festival to Me.
15 “You are to observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread. For seven days you are to eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you. Do this at the appointed time in the month of Abib, for in that month you came out of Egypt. No one is to appear before Me empty-handed.
16 “You are to observe the Feast of Harvest with the firstfruits of your produce from what you sow in the field. You are to observe the Feast of Ingathering at the end of the year, when you gather in your crops from the field.
17 “Three times in the year all your males are to appear before the Lord God.
18 “Do not offer the blood of My sacrifice with anything leavened.
“The fat of My festival offerings must not kept overnight until morning.
19 “Bring the best of the firstfruits of your land to the house of the Lord your God.
“Do not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.
20 “Behold, I am sending an Angel ahead of you, to guard you along the way and bring you to the place I have prepared. 21 Pay attention to Him and listen to what He says. Do not rebel against Him, for He will not forgive your acts of rebellion, since My Name is in Him. 22 But if you listen carefully to what He says and do all that I say, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries. 23 My Angel will go ahead of you and bring you into the land of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hivites, and Jebusites, and I will wipe them out. 24 Do not bow down to their gods, or worship them, or follow their practices. Instead, you must demolish them, and break their sacred pillars in pieces. 25 Worship the Lord your God, and His blessing will be on your food and your water. I will take away sickness from among you. 26 No women will miscarry or be barren in your land. I will give you a full span of life.
27 “I will send My terror ahead of you and throw into confusion every nation that you come up against. I will make all your enemies turn their backs to you and run. 28 I will send the hornet ahead of you to drive out the Hivites, Canaanites, and Hittites from before you. 29 But I will not drive them out from before you in a single year, or the land will become desolate and the wild animals too numerous for you. 30 Little by little I will drive them out from before you, until you have increased enough to take possession of the land. 31 I will set your boundary from the Red Sea to the sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness to the River. I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and you will drive them out before you. 32 Do not make a covenant with them and their gods. 33 They must not live in your land, or they will make you sin against Me; for if you serve their gods, it will certainly be a snare to you.”