Good News Bible

Exodus 34:12-23 Good News Bible (GNB)

12. Do not make any treaties with the people of the country into which you are going, because this could be a fatal trap for you.

13. Instead, tear down their altars, destroy their sacred pillars, and cut down the symbols of their goddess Asherah.

14. “Do not worship any other god, because I, the Lord, tolerate no rivals.

15. Do not make any treaties with the people of the country, because when they worship their pagan gods and sacrifice to them, they will invite you to join them, and you will be tempted to eat the food they offer to their gods.

16. Your sons might marry those foreign women, who would lead them to be unfaithful to me and to worship their pagan gods.

17. “Do not make and worship gods of metal.

18. “Keep the Festival of Unleavened Bread. As I have commanded you, eat unleavened bread for seven days in the month of Abib, because it was in that month that you left Egypt.

19. “Every firstborn son and firstborn male domestic animal belongs to me,

20. but you are to buy back every firstborn donkey by offering a lamb in its place. If you do not buy it back, break its neck. Buy back every firstborn son.“No one is to appear before me without an offering.

21. “You have six days in which to do your work, but do not work on the seventh day, not even during ploughing time or harvest.

22. “Keep the Harvest Festival when you begin to harvest the first crop of your wheat, and keep the Festival of Shelters in the autumn when you gather your fruit.

23. “Three times a year all your men must come to worship me, the Lord, the God of Israel.