Exodus 23–25

Chapter 23

¹Thou shalt not accept a false report; extend not thy hand to the wicked, to be an unrighteous witness. ²Thou shalt not follow the multitude for evil; neither shalt thou answer in a cause, to go after the multitude to pervert judgment. ³Neither shalt thou favour a poor man in his cause. ⁴—If thou meet thine enemy’s ox or his ass going astray, thou shalt certainly bring it back to him. ⁵If thou see the ass of him that hateth thee lying under its burden, beware of leaving it to him: thou shalt certainly loosen it with him. ⁶Thou shalt not pervert the judgment of thy poor in his cause. ⁷Thou shalt keep far from the cause of falsehood; and the innocent and righteous slay not; for I will not justify the wicked. ⁸And thou shalt take no bribe; for the bribe blindeth those whose eyes are open, and perverteth the words of the righteous. ⁹And the stranger thou shalt not oppress; for ye know the spirit of the stranger, for ye have been strangers in the land of Egypt.

¹⁰And six years thou shalt sow thy land, and gather in its produce; ¹¹but in the seventh thou shalt let it rest and lie fallow, that the poor of thy people may eat of it; and what they leave, the beasts of the field shall eat. In like manner thou shalt deal with thy vineyard, and with thine olive-tree. ¹²—Six days thou shalt do thy work, but 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. ¹³And ye shall be on your guard as to everything that I have said unto you; and shall make no mention of the name of other gods—it shall not be heard in thy mouth. ¹⁴Thrice in the year thou shalt celebrate a feast to me. ¹⁵Thou shalt keep the feast of unleavened bread, (thou shalt eat unleavened bread seven days, as I have commanded thee, in the time appointed of the month Abib; for in it thou camest out from Egypt; and none shall appear in my presence empty;) ¹⁶and the feast of harvest, the first-fruits of thy labours which thou hast sown in the field, and the feast of in-gathering, at the end of the year, when thou gatherest in thy labours out of the field. ¹⁷Three times in the year all thy males shall appear in the presence of the Lord Jehovah. ¹⁸Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread; neither shall the fat of my feast remain all night until the morning. ¹⁹The first of the first-fruits of thy land thou shalt bring into the house of Jehovah thy God. Thou shalt not boil a kid in its mother’s milk.

²⁰Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee to the place that I have prepared. ²¹Be careful in his presence, and hearken unto his voice: do not provoke him, for he will not forgive your transgressions; for my name is in him. ²²But if thou shalt diligently hearken unto his voice, and do all that I shall say, then I will be an enemy to thine enemies, and an adversary to thine adversaries. ²³For 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. ²⁴Thou shalt not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do after their deeds; but thou shalt utterly destroy them, and utterly shatter their statues. ²⁵And ye shall serve Jehovah your God; and he shall bless thy bread and thy water; and I will take sickness away from thy midst. ²⁶There shall nothing cast their young, nor be barren, in thy land; the number of thy days will I fulfil. ²⁷I will send my fear before thee, and confound every people to which thou comest, and will make all thine enemies turn their back to thee. ²⁸And I will send hornets before thee, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before thee. ²⁹I 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. ³⁰By little and little I will drive them out from before thee, until thou art fruitful, and possess the land. ³¹And I will set thy bounds from the Red Sea even unto the sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness unto the river; for I will give the inhabitants of the land into your hand, that thou mayest dispossess them from before thee. ³²Thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor with their gods. ³³They shall not dwell in thy land, lest they make thee sin against me; for if thou serve their gods, it is sure to be a snare unto thee.

Chapter 24

¹And he said to Moses, Go up to Jehovah, thou and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel; and worship afar off. ²And let Moses alone come near Jehovah; but they shall not come near; neither shall the people go up with him. ³And Moses came and told the people all the words of Jehovah, and all the judgments; and all the people answered with one voice, and said, All the words that Jehovah has said will we do! ⁴And Moses wrote all the words of Jehovah, and rose up early in the morning, and built an altar under the mountain, and twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of Israel. ⁵And he sent the youths of the children of Israel, and they offered up burnt-offerings, and sacrificed sacrifices of peace-offering of bullocks to Jehovah. ⁶And Moses took half the blood, and put it in basons; and half of the blood he sprinkled on the altar. ⁷And he took the book of the covenant, and read it in the ears of the people; and they said, All that Jehovah has said will we do, and obey! ⁸And Moses took the blood, and sprinkled it on the people, and said, Behold the blood of the covenant that Jehovah has made with you concerning all these words.

⁹And Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up; ¹⁰and they saw the God of Israel; and there was under his feet as it were work of transparent sapphire, and as it were the form of heaven for clearness. ¹¹And on the nobles of the children of Israel he laid not his hand: they saw God, and ate and drank.

¹²And Jehovah said to Moses, Come up to me into the mountain, and be there; and I will give thee the tables of stone, and the law, and the commandment that I have written, for their instruction. ¹³And Moses rose up, and Joshua his attendant; and Moses went up to the mountain of God. ¹⁴And he said to the elders, Wait here for us, until we return to you; and behold, Aaron and Hur are with you: if any man have any matter, let him come before them. ¹⁵And Moses went up to the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain. ¹⁶And the glory of Jehovah abode on mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days; and on the seventh day he called to Moses out of the midst of the cloud. ¹⁷And the appearance of the glory of Jehovah was like a consuming fire on the top of the mountain, before the eyes of the children of Israel. ¹⁸And Moses went into the midst of the cloud, and ascended the mountain. And Moses was on the mountain forty days and forty nights.

Chapter 25

¹And Jehovah spoke to Moses, saying, ²Speak unto the children of Israel, that they bring me a heave-offering: of every one whose heart prompteth him, ye shall take my heave-offering. ³And this is the heave-offering that ye shall take of them: gold, and silver, and copper, ⁴and blue, and purple, and scarlet, and byssus, and goats’ hair, ⁵and rams’ skins dyed red, and badgers’ skins; and acacia-wood; ⁶oil for the light; spices for the anointing oil, and for the incense of fragrant drugs; ⁷onyx stones, and stones to be set in the ephod, and in the breastplate. ⁸And they shall make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them. ⁹According to all that I shall shew thee, the pattern of the tabernacle, and the pattern of all the utensils thereof, even so shall ye make it.

¹⁰And they shall make an ark of acacia-wood; two cubits and a half the length thereof, and a cubit and a half the breadth thereof, and a cubit and a half the height thereof. ¹¹And thou shalt overlay it with pure gold: inside and outside shalt thou overlay it; and shalt make upon it a border of gold round about. ¹²And cast four rings of gold for it, and put them at the four corners thereof, that two rings may be upon the one side thereof and two rings upon the other side thereof. ¹³And make staves of acacia-wood and overlay them with gold. ¹⁴And put the staves into the rings upon the sides of the ark, that the ark may be borne with them. ¹⁵The staves shall be in the rings of the ark: they shall not come out from it. ¹⁶And thou shalt put into the ark the testimony that I shall give thee. ¹⁷And thou shalt make a mercy-seat of pure gold: two cubits and a half the length thereof, and a cubit and a half the breadth thereof. ¹⁸And thou shalt make two cherubim of gold; of beaten work shalt thou make them, at the two ends of the mercy-seat. ¹⁹And make one cherub at the end of the one side, and one cherub at the end of the other side; out of the mercy-seat shall ye make the cherubim at the two ends thereof. ²⁰And the cherubim shall stretch out their wings over it, covering over with their wings the mercy-seat, and their faces opposite to one another: toward the mercy-seat shall the faces of the cherubim be turned. ²¹And thou shalt put the mercy-seat above on the ark, and shalt put in the ark the testimony that I shall give thee. ²²And there will I meet with thee, and will speak with thee from above the mercy-seat, from between the two cherubim which are upon the ark of the testimony, everything that I will give thee in commandment unto the children of Israel.

²³And thou shalt make a table of acacia-wood, two cubits the length thereof, and a cubit the breadth thereof, and a cubit and a half the height thereof. ²⁴And thou shalt overlay it with pure gold, and make upon it a border of gold round about. ²⁵And thou shalt make for it a margin of a handbreadth round about, and shalt make a border of gold for the margin thereof round about. ²⁶And thou shalt make for it four rings of gold, and…