the Week of Proper 28 / Ordinary 33
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Exodus 23
1 You shall not take up a false report: don't put your hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness.2 You shall not follow a multitude to do evil; neither shall you speak in a cause to turn aside after a multitude to pervert [justice]:3 neither shall you favor a poor man in his cause.4 If you meet your enemy's ox or his donkey going astray, you shall surely bring it back to him again.5 If you see the donkey of him that hates you lying under his burden, you shall forbear to leave him, you shall strengthen [it] with him.6 You shall not pervert the justice [due] to your poor in his cause.7 Keep far from a false matter; and don't slay the innocent and righteous: for I will not justify the wicked.8 And you shall take no bribe: for a bribe blinds those that have sight, and perverts the words of the righteous.9 And a sojourner you shall not oppress: for you know the heart of a sojourner, seeing you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.
10 And six years you shall sow your land, and shall gather in the increase thereof:11 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 beast of the field shall eat. In like manner you shall deal with your vineyard, [and] with your oliveyard.12 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 female slave, and the sojourner, may be refreshed.13 And in all things that I have said to you you take heed: and make no mention of the name of other gods, neither let it be heard out of your mouth.14 Three times you shall keep a feast to me in the year.15 The feast of unleavened bread you shall keep: 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 from Egypt); and no one shall appear before me empty:16 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.17 Three times in the year all your males shall appear before the Lord Yahweh.18 You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread; neither shall the fat of my feast remain all night until the morning.19 The first of the first fruits of your ground you shall bring into the house of Yahweh your God. You shall not boil a young goat in it mother's milk.
20 Look, I send an angel before you, to keep you by the way, and to bring you into the place which I have prepared.21 You take heed before him, and listen to his voice; don't provoke him; for he will not pardon your transgression: for my name is in him.22 But if you shall 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.23 For my angel shall go before you, and bring you in to the Amorite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Canaanite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite: and I will cut them off.24 You shall not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do after their works; but you shall completely overthrow them, and break in pieces their pillars.25 And you shall serve Yahweh your God, and he will bless your bread, and your water; and I will take sickness away from the midst of you.26 There shall be none that cast her young, nor that shall be barren, in your land: the number of your days I will fulfill.27 I will send my terror before you, and will discomfit all the people to whom you shall come, and I will make all your enemies turn their backs to you.28 And I will send the hornet before you, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before you.29 I will not drive them out from before you in one year, or else the land will become desolate, and the beasts of the field will multiply against you.30 By little and little I will drive them out from before you, until you are increased, and inherit the land.31 And 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.32 You shall make no covenant with them, nor with their gods.33 They shall not dwell in your land, or else they will make you sin against me; for if you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare to you.
Updated Bible Version
Scripture quotations are from the UPDV® Updated Bible Version 1.9, Copyright © 2003-4 by Updated Publishers. Used by permission. All Rights Reserved.