Chapter 19

The Lord, too, spoke to Moses,

bidding him give the whole company of Israel this message: You must be men set apart, as I am set apart, I, the Lord your God.

Worshippers of such a God, you must reverence father and mother, and keep my day of rest;

worshippers of such a God, you must not betake yourselves to idols, make molten images at your pleasure.

If you immolate a victim by way of welcome-offering, to win the Lord’s favour,

eat it on the day of its immolation, or the day after; whatever remains on the third day must be destroyed by fire.

The man who eats of it when two days have passed defiles it and displeases me;

he will be held to account for profaning what is consecrated to the Lord; he shall be lost to his people.

When thou reapest the crops on thy land, do not rase all to the level of the ground,1 or pick up the scattered ears;

do not hoard up the clusters or the grapes that have fallen. Leave something for poor men and wanderers to glean; remember what God you worship.

Do not steal, and lie, and deceive one another.

Do not violate the honour of thy God by swearing falsely in my name; the Lord’s name.

Do not wrong thy neighbour or despoil him by violence; do not withhold the wages of thy hired servants till morning comes.

Do not miscall the deaf, or put a stumbling-block in the blind man’s way; thou hast the vengeance of thy God to fear; the Lord’s vengeance.

Do not pervert justice by giving false awards, whether by taking a man’s poverty into account,2 or by flattering the great; give every man his just due.

Do not whisper calumnies in the public ear, and swear away thy neighbour’s life; the Lord hears thee.

Do not nurse resentment against thy brother; put thyself in the right by confronting him with his fault.

Do not seek revenge, or bear a grudge for wrong done to thee by thy fellow-citizens; thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself; thy Lord is his.

Keep true to my commandments; do not mate any beast of thine with one of another sort, or sow thy field with a mixed crop, or wear garments woven of two different fabrics.

If a man has commerce with a slave-woman promised in marriage, but not yet redeemed or set free, both shall be beaten, but they shall not be put to death, as if she were a free woman.

The man must offer a ram to the Lord at the tabernacle door for wrong done,

and so the priest will make intercession before the Lord for the fault he has committed, and the Lord will be merciful, and pardon his fault.

When you reach your own country and plant fruit-trees there, you must strip them of the fruit they bear,5 as something unclean, not for your eating,

till the fourth year; then you must offer the whole crop to the Lord as an acceptable sacrifice.

You must not gather the fruit on them for your own eating till the fifth year; the Lord your God comes first.

Do not eat anything that has the blood still in it. Do not consult omens, or pay regard to dreams.

There must be no tonsuring of heads and mutilating of beards,

no gashing your bodies when a man dies, no branding them with marks and designs; the Lord forbids it.

Do not expose any daughter of thine to dishonour; so thou wilt bring dishonour on the whole land, and fill it with lewdness.

Keep your observance for my sabbaths, your reverence for my sanctuary.

Do not betake yourselves to sorcerers, or consult wizards, to your defilement; you are the Lord’s worshippers.

Rise up from thy seat in reverence for grey hairs; honour the aged, as thou dost fear God, the Lord thy God.

If an alien comes to dwell in your land, and settles down among you, do not treat him disdainfully;

welcome him as if he were native born, and do him kindness as if he were one of yourselves, remembering that you were aliens once, in the land of Egypt; the Lord your God remembers.

There must be no tampering with justice, with the rule or the weight or the measure you employ;

an even scale, a true balance, a full bushel, a full pint-measure; ever just the Lord your God is, that rescued you from Egypt.

Remember all these laws, all these decrees of mine, and live by them; the Lord’s decrees.