¹² If the neighbor is poor, do not go to sleep with their pledge^(A) in your possession. ¹³ Return their cloak by sunset^(B) so that your neighbor may sleep in it.^(C) Then they will thank you, and it will be regarded as a righteous act in the sight of the Lord your God.^(D)

¹⁴ Do not take advantage of a hired worker who is poor and needy, whether that worker is a fellow Israelite or a foreigner residing in one of your towns.^{(E) 15} Pay them their wages each day before sunset, because they are poor^(F) and are counting on it.^(G) Otherwise they may cry to the Lord against you, and you will be guilty of sin.^(H)

¹⁶ Parents are not to be put to death for their children, nor children put to death for their parents; each will die for their own sin.^(I)

¹⁷ Do not deprive the foreigner or the fatherless^(J) of justice,^(K) or take the cloak of the widow as a pledge.

²⁶ If you take your neighbor’s cloak as a pledge,^(A) return it by sunset, ²⁷ because that cloak is the only covering your neighbor has. What else can they sleep in?^(B) When they cry out to me, I will hear, for I am compassionate.^(C)

²¹ You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot have a part in both the Lord’s table and the table of demons.^(A)

⁷ Do not be idolaters,^(A) as some of them were; as it is written: “The people sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry.”^[a](B)

¹⁰ For if someone with a weak conscience sees you, with all your knowledge, eating in an idol’s temple, won’t that person be emboldened to eat what is sacrificed to idols?^(A)

Israel Has Not Returned to God