Exodus 23

English Standard Version

23 ^(A)“You shall not spread a false report. You shall not join hands with a wicked man to be a ^(B)malicious witness. ²You shall not fall in with the many to do evil, nor shall you bear witness in a lawsuit, siding with the many, so as to pervert justice, ³^(C)nor shall you be partial to a poor man in his lawsuit.

⁴^(D)“If you meet your enemy's ox or his donkey going astray, you shall bring it back to him. ⁵If you see the donkey of one who hates you lying down under its burden, you shall refrain from leaving him with it; you shall rescue it with him.

⁶^(E)“You shall not pervert the justice due to your poor in his lawsuit. ⁷^(F)Keep far from a false charge, and ^(G)do not kill the innocent and righteous, for ^(H)I will not acquit the wicked. ⁸^(I)And you shall take no bribe, for a bribe blinds the clear-sighted and subverts the cause of those who are in the right.

⁹^(J)“You shall not oppress a sojourner. You know the heart of a sojourner, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.

Laws About the Sabbath and Festivals

¹⁰^(K)“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 beasts of the field may eat. You shall do likewise with your vineyard, and with your olive orchard.

¹²^(L)“Six days you shall do your work, but on the seventh day you shall rest; that your ox and your donkey may have rest, and the son of your servant woman, and the alien, may be refreshed.

¹³^(M)“Pay attention to all that I have said to you, and make no mention of the names of other gods, nor let it be heard on your lips.

¹⁴^(N)“Three times in the year you shall keep a feast to me. ¹⁵^(O)You 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 ^(P)Abib, for in it you came out of Egypt. ^(Q)None shall appear before me empty-handed. ¹⁶You shall keep ^(R)the Feast of Harvest, of the firstfruits of your labor, of what you sow in the field. You shall keep the ^(S)Feast of Ingathering at the end of the year, when you gather in from the field the fruit of your labor. ¹⁷^(T)Three times in the year shall all your males appear before the Lord God.

¹⁸^(U)“You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with anything leavened, or let the fat of my feast remain until the morning.

¹⁹“The best of the ^(V)firstfruits of your ground you shall bring into the house of the Lord your God.

^(W)“You shall not boil a young goat in its mother's milk.

Conquest of Canaan Promised

²⁰^(X)“Behold, I send an angel before you to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place that I have prepared. ²¹Pay careful attention to him and obey his voice; ^(Y)do not rebel against him, ^(Z)for he will not pardon your transgression, for my name is in him.

²²“But if you carefully obey his voice and do all that I say, then ^(AA)I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries.

²³^(AB)“When my angel goes before you and brings you ^(AC)to the Amorites and the Hittites and the Perizzites and the Canaanites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, and I blot them out, ²⁴you shall ^(AD)not bow down to their gods nor serve them, ^(AE)nor do as they do, but ^(AF)you shall utterly overthrow them and break their ^(AG)pillars in pieces. ²⁵You ^(AH)shall serve the Lord your God, and ^(AI)he^[a] will bless your bread and your water, and ^(AJ)I will take sickness away from among you. ²⁶^(AK)None shall miscarry or be barren in your land; I will fulfill the ^(AL)number of your days. ²⁷I will send ^(AM)my terror before you and will throw into ^(AN)confusion all the people against whom you shall come, and I will make all your enemies turn their backs to you. ²⁸And ^(AO)I will send hornets^[b] before you, which shall drive out the Hivites, the Canaanites, and the Hittites from before you. ²⁹^(AP)I 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 have increased and possess the land. ³¹^(AQ)And I will set your border from the Red Sea to the Sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness to the Euphrates,^[c] for ^(AR)I will give the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and you shall drive them out before you. ³²^(AS)You shall make no covenant with them and their gods. ³³They shall not dwell in your land, lest they make you sin against me; for if you serve their gods, ^(AT)it will surely be a snare to you.”

Footnotes

Exodus 23:25 Septuagint, Vulgate I
Exodus 23:28 Or the hornet
Exodus 23:31 Hebrew the River

Psalm 73

English Standard Version

Book Three

God Is My Strength and Portion Forever

A Psalm of ^(A)Asaph.

73 Truly God is good to ^(B)Israel,
    to those who are ^(C)pure in heart.
²But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled,
    my steps had nearly slipped.
³^(D)For I was ^(E)envious of the arrogant
    when I saw the ^(F)prosperity of the wicked.

⁴For they have no pangs until death;
    their bodies are fat and sleek.
⁵They are not in trouble as others are;
    they are not ^(G)stricken like the rest of mankind.
⁶Therefore pride is ^(H)their necklace;
    violence covers them as ^(I)a garment.
⁷Their ^(J)eyes swell out through fatness;
    their hearts overflow with follies.
⁸They scoff and ^(K)speak with malice;
    loftily they threaten oppression.
⁹They set their mouths against the heavens,
    and their tongue struts through the earth.
¹⁰Therefore his people turn back to them,
    and find ^(L)no fault in them.^[a]
¹¹And they say, ^(M)“How can God know?
    Is there knowledge in the Most High?”
¹²Behold, these are the wicked;
    always at ease, they ^(N)increase in riches.
¹³All in vain have I ^(O)kept my heart clean
    and ^(P)washed my hands in innocence.
¹⁴For all the day long I have been ^(Q)stricken
    and ^(R)rebuked ^(S)every morning.
¹⁵If I had said, “I will speak thus,”
    I would have betrayed ^(T)the generation of your children.

¹⁶But when I thought how to understand this,
it seemed to me ^(U)a wearisome task,
¹⁷until I went into ^(V)the sanctuary of God;
then I discerned their ^(W)end.

¹⁸Truly you set them in ^(X)slippery places;
    you make them fall to ruin.
¹⁹How they are destroyed ^(Y)in a moment,
    swept away utterly by ^(Z)terrors!
²⁰Like ^(AA)a dream when one awakes,
    O Lord, when ^(AB)you rouse yourself, you despise them as phantoms.
²¹When my soul was embittered,
    when I was pricked in heart,
²²I was ^(AC)brutish and ignorant;
    I was like ^(AD)a beast toward you.

²³Nevertheless, I am continually with you;
    you ^(AE)hold my right hand.
²⁴You ^(AF)guide me with your counsel,
    and afterward you will ^(AG)receive me to glory.
²⁵^(AH)Whom have I in heaven but you?
    And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
²⁶^(AI)My flesh and my heart may fail,
    but God is ^(AJ)the strength^[b] of my heart and my ^(AK)portion ^(AL)forever.

²⁷For behold, those who are ^(AM)far from you shall perish;
    you put an end to everyone who is ^(AN)unfaithful to you.
²⁸But for me it is good to ^(AO)be near God;
    I have made the Lord God my ^(AP)refuge,
    that I may ^(AQ)tell of all your works.

Footnotes

Psalm 73:10 Probable reading; Hebrew the waters of a full cup are drained by them
Psalm 73:26 Hebrew rock

1 Samuel 24

English Standard Version

David Spares Saul's Life

24 ^[a] ^(A)When Saul returned from following the Philistines, he was told, “Behold, David is in the wilderness of Engedi.” ²Then Saul took ^(B)three thousand chosen men out of all Israel and went to seek David and his men in front of the Wildgoats' Rocks. ³And he came to the sheepfolds by the way, where there was a cave, and Saul went in ^(C)to relieve himself.^[b] Now David and his men were sitting in the innermost parts ^(D)of the cave. ⁴And the men of David said to him, ^(E)“Here is the day of which the Lord said to you, ‘Behold, I will give your enemy into your hand, and you shall do to him as it shall seem good to you.’” Then David arose and stealthily cut off a corner of Saul's robe. ⁵And afterward ^(F)David's heart struck him, because he had cut off a corner of Saul's robe. ⁶He said to his men, ^(G)“The Lord forbid that I should do this thing to my lord, the Lord's anointed, to put out my hand against him, seeing he is ^(H)the Lord's anointed.” ⁷So David persuaded his men with these words ^(I)and did not permit them to attack Saul. And Saul rose up and left the cave and went on his way.

⁸Afterward David also arose and went out of the cave, and called after Saul, “My lord the king!” And when Saul looked behind him, David bowed with his face to the earth and paid homage. ⁹And David said to Saul, “Why do you listen to the words of men who say, ‘Behold, David seeks your harm’? ¹⁰Behold, this day your eyes have seen how the Lord gave you today into my hand in the cave. ^(J)And some told me to kill you, but I spared you.^[c] I said, ‘I will not put out my hand against my lord, ^(K)for he is the Lord's anointed.’ ¹¹See, my father, see the corner of your robe in my hand. For by the fact that I cut off the corner of your robe and did not kill you, you may know and see that ^(L)there is no wrong or treason in my hands. I have not sinned against you, though ^(M)you hunt my life to take it. ¹²^(N)May the Lord judge between me and you, may the Lord avenge me against you, but my hand shall not be against you. ¹³As the proverb of the ancients says, ‘Out of the wicked comes wickedness.’ But my hand shall not be against you. ¹⁴After whom has the king of Israel come out? After whom do you pursue? ^(O)After a dead dog! ^(P)After a flea! ¹⁵^(Q)May the Lord therefore be judge and give sentence between me and you, and see to it and ^(R)plead my cause and deliver me from your hand.”

¹⁶As soon as David had finished speaking these words to Saul, Saul said, ^(S)“Is this your voice, my son David?” And Saul lifted up his voice and wept. ¹⁷He said to David, “You are more righteous than I, ^(T)for you have repaid me good, whereas I have repaid you evil. ¹⁸And you have declared this day how you have dealt well with me, in that you did not kill me when the Lord put me into your hands. ¹⁹For if a man finds his enemy, will he let him go away safe? So may the Lord reward you with good for what you have done to me this day. ²⁰And now, behold, ^(U)I know that you shall surely be king, and that the kingdom of Israel shall be established in your hand. ²¹^(V)Swear to me therefore by the Lord that you will not cut off my offspring after me, and ^(W)that you will not destroy my name out of my father's house.” ²²And David swore this to Saul. Then Saul went home, but David and his men went up ^(X)to the stronghold.