Exodus 23–25

Chapter 23

¹“You shall not utter a false report. You shall not join hands with a wicked man, to be a malicious witness. ²You shall not follow a multitude to do evil; nor shall you bear witness in a suit, turning aside after a multitude, so as to pervert justice; ³nor shall you be partial to a poor man in his suit.

⁴“If you meet your enemy’s ox or his ass going astray, you shall bring it back to him. ⁵If you see the ass of one who hates you lying under its burden, you shall refrain from leaving him with it, you shall help him to lift it up.^m

⁶“You shall not pervert the justice due to your poor in his suit. ⁷Keep far from a false charge, and do not slay the innocent and righteous, for I will not acquit the wicked. ⁸And you shall take no bribe, for a bribe blinds the officials, and subverts the cause of those who are in the right.

⁹“You shall not oppress a stranger; you know the heart of a stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.

¹⁰“For six years you shall sow your land and gather in its yield; ¹¹but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, that the poor of your people may eat; and what they leave the wild beasts may eat. You shall do likewise with your vineyard, and with your olive orchard.

¹²“Six days you shall do your work, but on the seventh day you shall rest; that your ox and your ass may have rest, and the son of your bondmaid, and the alien, may be refreshed. ¹³Take heed to all that I have said to you; and make no mention of the names of other gods, nor let such be heard out of your mouth.

¹⁴“Three times in the year you shall keep a feast to me. ¹⁵You shall keep the feast of unleavened bread; as I commanded you, you shall eat unleavened bread for seven days at the appointed time in the month of Abib, for in it you came out of Egypt. None shall appear before me empty-handed. ¹⁶You shall keep the feast of harvest, of the first fruits of your labor, of what you sow in the field. You shall keep the feast of ingathering at the end of the year, when you gather in from the field the fruit of your labor. ¹⁷Three times in the year shall all your males appear before the Lord GOD.

¹⁸“You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread, or let the fat of my feast remain until the morning.

¹⁹“The first of the first fruits of your ground you shall bring into the house of the Lord your God.

“You shall not boil a kid in its mother’s milk.

²⁰“Behold, I send an angel before you, to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place which I have prepared. ²¹Give heed to him and hearken to his voice, do not rebel against him, for he will not pardon your transgression; for my name is in him.

²²“But if you hearken attentively to his voice and do all that I say, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries.

²³“When my angel goes before you, and brings you in to the Amorites, and the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Canaanites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, and I blot them out, ²⁴you shall not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do according to their works, but you shall utterly overthrow them and break their pillars in pieces. ²⁵You shall serve the Lord your God, and I will bless your bread and your water; and I will take sickness away from the midst of you. ²⁶None shall cast her young or be barren in your land; I will fulfil the number of your days. ²⁷I will send my terror before you, and will throw into confusion all the people against whom you shall come, and I will make all your enemies turn their backs to you. ²⁸And I will send hornets before you, which shall drive out Hivite, Canaanite, and Hittite from before you. ²⁹I will not drive them out from before you in one year, lest the land become desolate and the wild beasts multiply against you. ³⁰Little by little I will drive them out from before you, until you are increased and possess the land. ³¹And I will set your bounds from the Red Sea to the sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness to the Euphrates; for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and you shall drive them out before you. ³²You shall make no covenant with them or with their gods. ³³They shall not dwell in your land, lest they make you sin against me; for if you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare to you.”

Chapter 24

¹And he said to Moses, “Come up to the Lord, you and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, and worship afar off. ²Moses alone shall come near to the Lord; but the others shall not come near, and the people shall not come up with him.”

³Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord and all the ordinances; and all the people answered with one voice, and said, “All the words which the Lord has spoken we will do.” ⁴And Moses wrote all the words of the Lord. And he rose early in the morning, and built an altar at the foot of the mountain, and twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of Israel. ⁵And he sent young men of the people of Israel, who offered burnt offerings and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen to the Lord. ⁶And Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins, and half of the blood he threw against the altar. ⁷Then he took the book of the covenant, and read it in the hearing of the people; and they said, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient.” ⁸And Moses took the blood and threw it upon the people, and said, “Behold the blood of the covenant which the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.”

⁹Then 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 a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness. ¹¹And he did not lay his hand on the chief men of the people of Israel; they beheld God, and ate and drank.

¹²The Lord said to Moses, “Come up to me on the mountain, and wait there; and I will give you the tables of stone, with the law and the commandment, which I have written for their instruction.” ¹³So Moses rose with his servant Joshua, and Moses went up into the mountain of God. ¹⁴And he said to the elders, “Tarry here for us, until we come to you again; and, behold, Aaron and Hur are with you; whoever has a cause, let him go to them.”

¹⁵Then Moses went up on the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain. ¹⁶The glory of the Lord settled 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. ¹⁷Now the appearance of the glory of the Lord was like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the sight of the people of Israel. ¹⁸And Moses entered the cloud, and went up on the mountain. And Moses was on the mountain forty days and forty nights.

Chapter 25

¹The Lord said to Moses, ²“Speak to the people of Israel, that they take for me an offering; from every man whose heart makes him willing you shall receive the offering for me. ³And this is the offering which you shall receive from them: gold, silver, and bronze, ⁴blue and purple and scarlet stuff and fine twined linen, goats’ hair, ⁵tanned rams’ skins, goatskins, acacia wood, ⁶oil for the lamps, spices for the anointing oil and for the fragrant incense, ⁷onyx stones, and stones for setting, for the ephod and for the breastpiece. ⁸And let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell in their midst. ⁹According to all that I show you concerning the pattern of the tabernacle, and of all its furniture, so you shall make it.

¹⁰“They shall make an ark of acacia wood; two cubits and a half shall be its length, a cubit and a half its breadth, and a cubit and a half its height. ¹¹And you shall overlay it with pure gold, within and without shall you overlay it, and you shall make upon it a molding of gold round about. ¹²And you shall cast four rings of gold for it and put them on its four feet, two rings on the one side of it, and two rings on the other side of it. ¹³You shall make poles of acacia wood, and overlay them with gold. ¹⁴And you shall put the poles into the rings on the sides of the ark, to carry the ark by them. ¹⁵The poles shall remain in the rings of the ark; they shall not be taken from it. ¹⁶And you shall put into the ark the testimony which I shall give you. ¹⁷Then you shall make a mercy seat of pure gold; two cubits and a half shall be its length, and a cubit and a half its breadth. ¹⁸And you shall make two cherubim of gold; of hammered work shall you make them, on the two ends of the mercy seat. ¹⁹Make one cherub on the one end, and one cherub on the other end; of one piece with the mercy seat shall you make the cherubim on its two ends. ²⁰The cherubim shall spread out their wings above, overshadowing the mercy seat with their wings, their faces one to another; toward the mercy seat shall the faces of the cherubim be. ²¹And you shall put the mercy seat on the top of the ark; and in the ark you shall put the testimony that I shall give you. ²²There I will meet with you, and from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim that are upon the ark of the testimony, I will speak with you of all that I will give you in commandment for the people of Israel.

²³“And you shall make a table of acacia wood; two cubits shall be its length, a cubit its breadth, and a cubit and a half its height. ²⁴You shall overlay it with pure gold, and make a molding of gold around it. ²⁵And you shall make around it a frame a handbreadth wide, and a molding of gold around the frame. ²⁶And you shall make for it four rings of gold, and fasten the rings to the four corners at its four legs. ²⁷Close to the frame the rings shall lie, as holders for the poles to carry the table. ²⁸You shall make the poles of acacia wood, and overlay them with gold, and the table shall be carried with these. ²⁹And you shall make its plates and dishes for incense, and its flagons and bowls with which to…