Study Desk

If one of your countrymen, a Hebrew man or woman, becomes your servant for a price and does work for you six years, in the seventh year let him go free.

Then take a sharp-pointed instrument, driving it through his ear into the door, and he will be your servant for ever. And you may do the same for your servant-girl.

Let it not seem hard to you that you have to send him away free; for he has been working for you for six years, which is twice the regular time for a servant: and the blessing of the Lord your God will be on you in everything you do.

All the first males to come to birth in your herd and your flock are to be holy to the Lord your God: the first birth of your ox is not to be used for work, the wool of your first lamb is not to be cut.

It may be used for food in your houses: the unclean and the clean may take of it, as of the gazelle and the roe.

Only do not take its blood for food, but let it be drained out on the earth like water.

Take note of the month of Abib and keep the Passover to the Lord your God: for in the month of Abib the Lord your God took you out of Egypt by night.

Take no leavened bread with it; for seven days let your food be unleavened bread, that is, the bread of sorrow; for you came out of the land of Egypt quickly: so the memory of that day, when you came out of the land of Egypt, will be with you all your life.

For seven days let no leaven be used through all your land; and nothing of the flesh which is put to death in the evening of the first day is to be kept through the night till morning.

For six days let your food be unleavened bread; and on the seventh day there is to be a holy meeting to the Lord your God; no work is to be done.

Then you are to be glad before the Lord your God, you and your son and your daughter, your man-servant and your woman-servant, and the Levite who is with you, and the man from a strange country, and the child without a father, and the widow, who are living among you, in the place marked out by the Lord your God as a resting-place for his name.

You are to keep the feast of tents for seven days after you have got in all your grain and made your wine:

Keep the feast to the Lord your God for seven days, in the place marked out by the Lord: because the blessing of the Lord your God will be on all the produce of your land and all the work of your hands, and you will have nothing but joy.

You are to make judges and overseers in all your towns which the Lord your God gives you, for every tribe: and they are to be upright men, judging the people in righteousness.

You are not to be moved in your judging by a man's position, you are not to take rewards; for rewards make the eyes of the wise man blind, and the decisions of the upright false.

Let righteousness be your guide, so that you may have life, and take for your heritage the land which the Lord your God is giving you.

You are not to put up stone pillars, for they are hated by the Lord your God.

No ox or sheep which has a mark on it or is damaged in any way may be offered to the Lord your God: for that is disgusting to the Lord your God.

If you are not able to give a decision as to who is responsible for a death, or who is right in a cause, or who gave the first blow in a fight, and there is a division of opinion about it in your town: then go to the place marked out by the Lord your God;

When you have come into the land which the Lord your God is giving you, and have taken it for a heritage and are living in it, if it is your desire to have a king over you, like the other nations round about you;