New American Bible, Revised Edition

Exodus 23:1-15 New American Bible, Revised Edition (NABRE)

1. You shall not repeat a false report. Do not join your hand with the wicked to be a witness supporting violence.

2. You shall not follow the crowd in doing wrong. When testifying in a lawsuit, you shall not follow the crowd in perverting justice.

3. You shall not favor the poor in a lawsuit.

4. When you come upon your enemy’s ox or donkey going astray, you must see to it that it is returned.

5. When you notice the donkey of one who hates you lying down under its burden, you should not desert him; you must help him with it.

6. You shall not pervert justice for the needy among you in a lawsuit.

7. You shall keep away from anything dishonest. The innocent and the just you shall not put to death, for I will not acquit the guilty.

8. Never take a bribe, for a bribe blinds the clear-sighted and distorts the words of the just.

9. You shall not oppress a resident alien; you well know how it feels to be an alien, since you were once aliens yourselves in the land of Egypt.

10. For six years you may sow your land and gather in its produce.

11. But the seventh year you shall let the land lie untilled and fallow, that the poor of your people may eat of it and their leftovers the wild animals may eat. So also shall you do in regard to your vineyard and your olive grove.

12. For six days you may do your work, but on the seventh day you must rest, that your ox and your donkey may have rest, and that the son of your maidservant and the resident alien may be refreshed.

13. Give heed to all that I have told you.You shall not mention the name of any other god; it shall not be heard from your lips.

14. Three times a year you shall celebrate a pilgrim feast to me.

15. You shall keep the feast of Unleavened Bread. As I have commanded you, you must eat unleavened bread for seven days at the appointed time in the month of Abib, for it was then that you came out of Egypt. No one shall appear before me empty-handed.