World English Bible · Egypt and Sinai
Exodus 23
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"You shall not spread a false report. Don't join your hand with to be a malicious . "You shall not follow a to do evil. You shall not testify in court to side with a multitude to pervert . You shall not a man in his cause. "If you meet your enemy's ox or his donkey going astray, you shall surely bring it back to him again. If you see the donkey of him who hates you fallen down under his burden, don't leave him. You shall surely help him with it. "You shall not deny to your people in their lawsuits. "Keep far from a false charge, and don't kill the innocent and ; for I will not . "You shall take no bribe, for a bribe blinds those who have sight and perverts the words of . "You shall not oppress an alien, for you know of an alien, since you were aliens in the land of . "For six years you shall sow your land, and shall gather in its increase, but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, that of your people may eat; and what they leave the animal of the field shall eat. In the same way, you shall deal with your and with your olive grove. "Six days you shall do your work, and on the seventh day you shall rest, that your ox and your donkey may have rest, and the son of , and may be refreshed. "Be careful to do all things that I have said to you; and don't invoke the name of other gods or even let them be heard out of your . "You shall observe a feast to me three times a year. You shall observe the feast of . Seven days you shall eat , as I commanded you, at the time appointed in the month (for in it you came out of ), and no one shall appear before me empty. And the , the of your labors, which you sow in the field; and the , at the end of the year, when you gather in your labors out of the field. Three times in the year all your males shall appear before . "You shall not offer of my with leavened bread. my feast shall not all night until the morning. You shall bring the first of the of your ground into the your . "You shall not boil a young goat in its mother's milk. "Behold, I send before you, to keep you by , and to bring you into the place which I have prepared. Pay attention to him, and listen to his voice. Don't provoke him, for he will not pardon your , for my name is in him. But if you indeed listen to his voice, and do all that I speak, then I will be an enemy to your , and an adversary to your . For my shall go before you, and bring you in to the , the , the , the , the , and the ; and I will cut them off. You shall not to their gods, nor them, nor follow their practices, but you shall utterly overthrow them and demolish their pillars. You shall your , and he will your bread and your water, and I will take sickness away from among you. No one will miscarry or be in your land. I will fulfill the number of your days. I will send my terror before you, and will confuse all the people to whom you come, and I will make all your turn their backs to you. I will send the hornet before you, which will drive out the , the , and the , from before you. I will not drive them out from before you in one year, lest the land become desolate, and the animals of the field multiply against you. 30Little by little I will drive them out from before you, until you have increased and the land. I will set your border from even to the sea of the , and from to ; for I will the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and you shall drive them out before you. You shall make no with them, nor with their gods. They shall not in your land, lest they make you against me, for if you their gods, it will surely be a snare to you."
A public domain modern English translation, free to read and share. Notes and cards are EKLI’s own.
The world at this moment · Egypt and Sinai, 1450 BC to 1200 BC ›
Israel in and then out of Egypt, at a period when Egypt was an imperial power that also controlled Canaan. The nation is formed as a people with a law before it has any land.
- Egypt
- The New Kingdom at its imperial peak, with a professional army, a chariot corps, and control reaching up through Canaan. Ramesses II reigns for sixty-six years and covers the country in monuments to himself. Egyptian power in this period is the reason Canaan is garrisoned rather than free.
- The Hittites
- The other superpower, in what is now Turkey, and Egypt's rival for the Levant. The two fight the largest chariot battle of the ancient world at Kadesh, then sign a treaty whose text survives from both sides. Hittite treaty form, with its historical prologue, stipulations, witnesses, blessings, and curses, is the shape the Sinai covenant takes, which is one of the stronger arguments for the antiquity of that material.
- The Aegean
- Mycenaean Greece: warrior kings in stone citadels at Mycenae and Pylos, keeping palace accounts in Linear B. The world of the Trojan War stories, whatever lies behind them.
- Further afield
- The Shang dynasty in China is casting extraordinary bronzes and writing questions to its ancestors on ox bones. In Mesoamerica the Olmec are beginning the first civilisation of the Americas.