Exodus 23 in Puritan & Reformed Writings

[1] Thou shalt not raise a false report: put not thine hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness. [2] Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil; neither shalt thou speak in a cause to decline after many to wrest judgment: [3] Neither shalt thou countenance a poor man in his cause. [4] If thou meet thine enemy’s ox or his ass going astray, thou shalt surely bring it back to him again. [5] If thou see the ass of him that hateth thee lying under his burden, and wouldest forbear to help him, thou shalt surely help with him. [6] Thou shalt not wrest the judgment of thy poor in his cause. [7] Keep thee far from a false matter; and the innocent and righteous slay thou not: for I will not justify the wicked. [8] And thou shalt take no gift: for the gift blindeth the wise, and perverteth the words of the righteous. [9] Also thou shalt not oppress a stranger: for ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt. [10] And six years thou shalt sow thy land, and shalt gather in the fruits thereof: [11] But the seventh year thou shalt let it rest and lie still; that the poor of thy people may eat: and what they leave the beasts of the field shall eat. In like manner thou shalt deal with thy vineyard, and with thy oliveyard. [12] Six days thou shalt do thy work, and on the seventh day thou shalt rest: that thine ox and thine ass may rest, and the son of thy handmaid, and the stranger, may be refreshed. [13] And in all things that I have said unto you be circumspect: and make no mention of the name of other gods, neither let it be heard out of thy mouth. [14] Three times thou shalt keep a feast unto me in the year. [15] Thou shalt keep the feast of unleavened bread: (thou shalt eat unleavened bread seven days, as I commanded thee, in the time appointed of the month Abib; for in it thou camest out from Egypt: and none shall appear before me empty:) [16] And the feast of harvest, the firstfruits of thy labours, which thou hast sown in the field: and the feast of ingathering, which is in the end of the year, when thou hast gathered in thy labours out of the field. [17] Three times in the year all thy males shall appear before the Lord God. [18] Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread; neither shall the fat of my sacrifice remain until the morning. [19] The first of the firstfruits of thy land thou shalt bring into the house of the Lord thy God. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother’s milk. [20] Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared. [21] Beware of him, and obey his voice, provoke him not; for he will not pardon your transgressions: for my name is in him. [22] But if thou shalt indeed obey his voice, and do all that I speak; then I will be an enemy unto thine enemies, and an adversary unto thine adversaries. [23] For mine Angel shall go before thee, and bring thee in unto the Amorites, and the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Canaanites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites: and I will cut them off. [24] Thou shalt not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do after their works: but thou shalt utterly overthrow them, and quite break down their images. [25] And ye shall serve the Lord your God, and he shall bless thy bread, and thy water; and I will take sickness away from the midst of thee. [26] There shall nothing cast their young, nor be barren, in thy land: the number of thy days I will fulfil. [27] I will send my fear before thee, and will destroy all the people to whom thou shalt come, and I will make all thine enemies turn their backs unto thee. [28] And I will send hornets before thee, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before thee. [29] I will not drive them out from before thee in one year; lest the land become desolate, and the beast of the field multiply against thee. [30] By little and little I will drive them out from before thee, until thou be increased, and inherit the land. [31] And I will set thy bounds from the Red sea even unto the sea of the Philistines, and from the desert unto the river: for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand; and thou shalt drive them out before thee. [32] Thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor with their gods. [33] They shall not dwell in thy land, lest they make thee sin against me: for if thou serve their gods, it will surely be a snare unto thee.