1Do not make false statements. And do not join hands with the wicked by being a malicious witness.
2Do not follow the majority when they do evil, or when they pervert justice in a lawsuit. 3Do not be partial, not even to the poor.
4If you see your enemy’s ox or donkey going astray, take it back to him.
5When you see the donkey of a man who hates you falling under its load, do not pass by but help him.
6Do not deny justice to any of your poor in a lawsuit.
7Keep away from lies.
Do not slay the innocent or the just, for I will not forgive the wicked.
8And do not take a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the clear-sighted and perverts the sentence of the just.
9Do not oppress a stranger; you know what it is to be a stranger, for that is what you were in the land of Egypt.
10For six years you will sow your fields and reap their produce, 11but in the seventh you will let the land rest and lie fallow. The poor may eat what it produces and what they leave the wild animals will eat. It will be the same for your vineyard and your olive grove.
12For six days you shall work but on the seventh you shall rest, so that your ox and your donkey may also rest and the son of your slave girl and the stranger as well may have a breathing space.
13Pay attention to all that I tell you and do not call upon other gods; don’t let their names be heard on your lips.
14Three times each year you shall celebrate a feast in my honor. 15You shall keep the feast of Unleavened Bread, as I commanded you, and eat unleavened bread for seven days at the appointed time in the month of Abib, for it was then that you left Egypt. And do not come to me empty-handed.
16You shall keep the feast of the Harvest with the feast of the first harvest of what you sowed in your fields.
Then the feast of Ingathering at the end of the year when you gather in the fruit of your labor in the fields.
17Three times during the year all your men shall present themselves before Yahweh.
18Do not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread or let the fat of my feast remain until morning.
19The first of the first fruits of your soil you will bring to the house of Yahweh, your God.
Do not boil a kid in its mother’s milk.
20 ① See, I am sending an Angel before you to keep you safe on the way and bring you to the place I have made ready.
21Be on your guard in his presence and listen to him; do not resist him for he will not pardon your wrong-doing, for my name is in him.
22If you listen to him and do what I say, I will be enemy to your enemies and the opponent of your opponents. 23My Angel will go before you and bring you to the land of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hivites and the Jebusites; all these I will destroy.
24You shall not bow down before their gods or serve them, or act according to their ways; rather you will destroy them utterly and smash their sacred stones.
25If you serve Yahweh, your God, he will bless your bread and your water — and I will keep sickness away from you. 26No woman among you will miscarry or be barren. I will fulfill the number of your days.
27Now I will send my terror ahead of you and throw into confusion all the people you encounter; I will make all your enemies turn and flee before you.
28I will send hornets ahead of you to drive out the Hivites, the Canaanites and the Hittites. 29I will not drive them out in a single year lest the land become a desert and the wild beasts increase and molest you. 30I will drive them out before you little by little until your number increase and you are able to take possession of the land.
31I will fix your boundaries from the Red Sea to the sea of the Philistines and from the Wilderness to the Euphrates; for I will deliver into your power the inhabitants of the land and I will drive them out before you.
32You shall make no treaty with them or with their gods. 33They shall not live in your country lest they lead you to sin against me and to serve their gods. That would surely be a snare for you.”
- Ex 23,20 See, I am sending an angel before you. It is very difficult to speak adequately of God's Providence for us. Am I to say every moment: This is the work of God? Here the Bible speaks of the angel that God sent before Israel. It is a way of saying that God protected and guided his own people, availing himself of countless, visible and invisible intermediaries. Smash their sacred stones. This destruction of idols has often been understood in past centuries in a fanatical way resulting in the disappearance of many pagan works of art. Doubtless it was impossible for this to be otherwise given the mentality of the time. What Paul says of meat sacrificed to idols could be equally said of works of art representing pagan gods (1 Cor 8). Today we understand that the phrase refers to the worship and cult of the false gods of our age.
