Justice and Fairness

¹“Do not spread false rumors, and do not help a guilty person by giving false testimony.

²Do not follow the majority when they do wrong or when they give testimony that perverts justice.

³Do not show partiality to a poor person at his trial.

⁴“If you happen to see your enemy's cow or donkey running loose, take it back to him.

⁵If his donkey has fallen under its load, help him get the donkey to its feet again; don't just walk off.

⁶“Do not deny justice to a poor person when he appears in court.

⁷Do not make false accusations, and do not put an innocent person to death, for I will condemn anyone who does such an evil thing.

⁸Do not accept a bribe, for a bribe makes people blind to what is right and ruins the cause of those who are innocent.

⁹“Do not mistreat a foreigner; you know how it feels to be a foreigner, because you were foreigners in Egypt.

The Seventh Year and the Seventh Day

¹⁰“For six years plant your land and gather in what it produces.

¹¹But in the seventh year let it rest, and do not harvest anything that grows on it. The poor may eat what grows there, and the wild animals can have what is left. Do the same with your vineyards and your olive trees.

¹²“Work six days a week, but do no work on the seventh day, so that your slaves and the foreigners who work for you and even your animals can rest.

¹³“Listen to everything that I, the Lord, have said to you. Do not pray to other gods; do not even mention their names.

The Three Great Festivals

¹⁴“Celebrate three festivals a year to honor me.

¹⁵In the month of Abib, the month in which you left Egypt, celebrate the Festival of Unleavened Bread in the way that I commanded you. Do not eat any bread made with yeast during the seven days of this festival. Never come to worship me without bringing an offering.

¹⁶“Celebrate the Harvest Festival when you begin to harvest your crops. “Celebrate the Festival of Shelters in the autumn, when you gather the fruit from your vineyards and orchards.

¹⁷Every year at these three festivals all your men must come to worship me, the Lord your God.

¹⁸“Do not offer bread made with yeast when you sacrifice an animal to me. The fat of animals sacrificed to me during these festivals is not to be left until the following morning.

¹⁹“Each year bring to the house of the Lord your God the first grain that you harvest. “Do not cook a young sheep or goat in its mother's milk.

Promises and Instructions

²⁰“I will send an angel ahead of you to protect you as you travel and to bring you to the place which I have prepared.

²¹Pay attention to him and obey him. Do not rebel against him, for I have sent him, and he will not pardon such rebellion.

²²But if you obey him and do everything I command, I will fight against all your enemies.

²³My angel will go ahead of you and take you into the land of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, and I will destroy them.

²⁴Do not bow down to their gods or worship them, and do not adopt their religious practices. Destroy their gods and break down their sacred stone pillars.

²⁵If you worship me, the Lord your God, I will bless you with food and water and take away all your sicknesses.

²⁶In your land no woman will have a miscarriage or be without children. I will give you long lives.

²⁷“I will make the people who oppose you afraid of me; I will bring confusion among the people against whom you fight, and I will make all your enemies turn and run from you.

²⁸I will throw your enemies into panic; I will drive out the Hivites, the Canaanites, and the Hittites as you advance.

²⁹I will not drive them out within a year's time; if I did, the land would become deserted, and the wild animals would be too many for you.

³⁰Instead, I will drive them out little by little, until there are enough of you to take possession of the land.

³¹I will make the borders of your land extend from the Gulf of Aqaba to the Mediterranean Sea and from the desert to the Euphrates River. I will give you power over the inhabitants of the land, and you will drive them out as you advance.

³²Do not make any agreement with them or with their gods.

³³Do not let those people live in your country; if you do, they will make you sin against me. If you worship their gods, it will be a fatal trap for you.”

The Day of Atonement

¹The Lord spoke to Moses after the death of the two sons of Aaron who were killed when they offered unholy fire to the Lord.

²He said, “Tell your brother Aaron that only at the proper time is he to go behind the curtain into the Most Holy Place, because that is where I appear in a cloud above the lid on the Covenant Box. If he disobeys, he will be killed.

³He may enter the Most Holy Place only after he has brought a young bull for a sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering.”

⁴Then the Lord gave the following instructions. Before Aaron goes into the Most Holy Place, he must take a bath and put on the priestly garments: the linen robe and shorts, the belt, and the turban.

⁵The community of Israel shall give Aaron two male goats for a sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering.

⁶He shall offer a bull as a sacrifice to take away his own sins and those of his family.

⁷Then he shall take the two goats to the entrance of the Tent of the Lord's presence.

⁸There he shall draw lots, using two stones, one marked “for the Lord” and the other “for Azazel.”

⁹Aaron shall sacrifice the goat chosen by lot for the Lord and offer it as a sin offering.

¹⁰The goat chosen for Azazel shall be presented alive to the Lord and sent off into the desert to Azazel, in order to take away the sins of the people.

¹¹When Aaron sacrifices the bull as the sin offering for himself and his family,

¹²he shall take a fire pan full of burning coals from the altar and two handfuls of fine incense and bring them into the Most Holy Place.

¹³There in the Lord's presence he shall put the incense on the fire, and the smoke of the incense will hide the lid of the Covenant Box so that he will not see it and die.

¹⁴He shall take some of the bull's blood and with his finger sprinkle it on the front of the lid and then sprinkle some of it seven times in front of the Covenant Box.

¹⁵After that, he shall kill the goat for the sin offering for the people, bring its blood into the Most Holy Place, and sprinkle it on the lid and then in front of the Covenant Box, as he did with the bull's blood.

¹⁶In this way he will perform the ritual to purify the Most Holy Place from the uncleanness of the people of Israel and from all their sins. He must do this to the Tent, because it stands in the middle of the camp, which is ritually unclean.

¹⁷From the time Aaron enters the Most Holy Place to perform the ritual of purification until he comes out, there must be no one in the Tent. When he has performed the ritual for himself, his family, and the whole community,

¹⁸he must then go out to the altar for burnt offerings and purify it. He must take some of the bull's blood and some of the goat's blood and put it all over the projections at the corners of the altar.

¹⁹With his finger he must sprinkle some of the blood on the altar seven times. In this way he is to purify it from the sins of the people of Israel and make it holy.

The Scapegoat

²⁰When Aaron has finished performing the ritual to purify the Most Holy Place, the rest of the Tent of the Lord's presence, and the altar, he shall present to the Lord the live goat chosen for Azazel.

²¹He shall put both of his hands on the goat's head and confess over it all the evils, sins, and rebellions of the people of Israel, and so transfer them to the goat's head. Then the goat is to be driven off into the desert by someone appointed to do it.

²²The goat will carry all their sins away with him into some uninhabited land.

²³Then Aaron shall go into the Tent, take off the priestly garments that he had put on before entering the Most Holy Place, and leave them there.

²⁴He must take a bath in a holy place and put on his own clothes. After that, he shall go out and offer the burnt offering to remove his own sins and those of the people.

²⁵He shall burn on the altar the fat of the animal for the sin offering.

²⁶The man who drove the goat into the desert to Azazel must wash his clothes and take a bath before he comes back into camp.

²⁷The bull and the goat used for the sin offering, whose blood was brought into the Most Holy Place to take away sin, shall be carried outside the camp and burned. Skin, meat, and intestines shall all be burned.

²⁸The one who burns them must wash his clothes and take a bath before he returns to camp.

Observing the Day of Atonement

²⁹The following regulations are to be observed for all time to come. On the tenth day of the seventh month the Israelites and the foreigners living among them must fast and must not do any work.

³⁰On that day the ritual is to be performed to purify them from all their sins, so that they will be ritually clean.

³¹That day is to be a very holy day, one on which they fast and do no work at all. These regulations are to be observed for all time to come.

³²The High Priest, properly ordained and consecrated to succeed his father, is to perform the ritual of purification. He shall put on the priestly garments

³³and perform the ritual to purify the Most Holy Place, the rest of the Tent of the Lord's presence, the altar, the priests, and all the people of the community.

³⁴These regulations are to be observed for all time to come. This ritual must be performed once a year to purify the people of Israel from all their sins. So Moses did as the Lord had commanded.

Comfort in Time of Distress

¹I cry aloud to God; I cry aloud, and he hears me.

²In times of trouble I pray to the Lord; all night long I lift my hands in prayer, but I cannot find comfort.

³When I think of God, I sigh; when I meditate, I feel discouraged.

⁴He keeps me awake all night; I am so worried that I cannot speak.

⁵I think of days gone by and remember years of long ago.

⁶I spend the night in deep thought; I meditate, and this is what I ask myself:

⁷“Will the Lord always reject us? Will he never again be pleased with us?

⁸Has he stopped loving us? Does his promise no longer stand?

⁹Has God forgotten to be merciful? Has anger taken the place of his compassion?”

¹⁰Then I said, “What hurts me most is this— that God is no longer powerful.”

¹¹I will remember your great deeds, Lord; I will recall the wonders you did in the past.

¹²I will think about all that you have done; I will meditate on all your mighty acts.

¹³Everything you do, O God, is holy. No god is as great as you.

¹⁴You are the God who works miracles; you showed your might among the nations.

¹⁵By your power you saved your people, the descendants of Jacob and of Joseph.

¹⁶When the waters saw you, O God, they were afraid, and the depths of the sea trembled.

¹⁷The clouds poured down rain; thunder crashed from the sky, and lightning flashed in all directions.

¹⁸The crash of your thunder rolled out, and flashes of lightning lit up the world; the earth trembled and shook.

¹⁹You walked through the waves; you crossed the deep sea, but your footprints could not be seen.

²⁰You led your people like a shepherd, with Moses and Aaron in charge.