English Standard Version

Exodus 23:1-11 English Standard Version (ESV)

1. “You shall not spread a false report. You shall not join hands with a wicked man to be a malicious witness.

2. You shall not fall in with the many to do evil, nor shall you bear witness in a lawsuit, siding with the many, so as to pervert justice,

3. nor shall you be partial to a poor man in his lawsuit.

4. “If you meet your enemy’s ox or his donkey going astray, you shall bring it back to him.

5. If you see the donkey of one who hates you lying down under its burden, you shall refrain from leaving him with it; you shall rescue it with him.

6. “You shall not pervert the justice due to your poor in his lawsuit.

7. Keep far from a false charge, and do not kill the innocent and righteous, for I will not acquit the wicked.

8. And you shall take no bribe, for a bribe blinds the clear-sighted and subverts the cause of those who are in the right.

9. “You shall not oppress a sojourner. You know the heart of a sojourner, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.

10. “For six years you shall sow your land and gather in its yield,

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 beasts of the field may eat. You shall do likewise with your vineyard, and with your olive orchard.