The Wilderness Years

For there will never cease to be poor in the land; that is why I am commanding you to open wide your hand to your brother and to the poor and needy in your land.

If a fellow Hebrew, a man or a woman, is sold to you and serves you six years, then in the seventh year you must set him free.

And when you release him, do not send him away empty-handed.

You are to furnish him liberally from your flock, your threshing floor, and your winepress. You shall give to him as the LORD your God has blessed you.

Remember that you were slaves in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God redeemed you; that is why I am giving you this command today.

But if your servant says to you, ‘I do not want to leave you,’ because he loves you and your household and is well off with you,

then take an awl and pierce it through his ear into the door, and he will become your servant for life. And treat your maidservant the same way.

Do not regard it as a hardship to set your servant free, because his six years of service were worth twice the wages of a hired hand. And the LORD your God will bless you in all you do.

You must set apart to the LORD your God every firstborn male produced by your herds and flocks. You are not to put the firstborn of your oxen to work, nor are you to shear the firstborn of your flock.

Each year you and your household are to eat it before the LORD your God in the place the LORD will choose.

But if an animal has a defect, is lame or blind, or has any serious flaw, you must not sacrifice it to the LORD your God.

Eat it within your gates; both the ceremonially unclean and clean may eat it as they would a gazelle or a deer.

But you must not eat the blood; pour it on the ground like water.

Observe the month of Abib and celebrate the Passover to the LORD your God, because in the month of Abib the LORD your God brought you out of Egypt by night.

You are to offer to the LORD your God the Passover sacrifice from the herd or flock in the place the LORD will choose as a dwelling for His Name.

You must not eat leavened bread with it; for seven days you are to eat with it unleavened bread, the bread of affliction, because you left the land of Egypt in haste—so that you may remember for the rest of your life the day you left the land of Egypt.

No leaven is to be found in all your land for seven days, and none of the meat you sacrifice in the evening of the first day shall remain until morning.

You are not to sacrifice the Passover animal in any of the towns that the LORD your God is giving you.

You must only offer the Passover sacrifice at the place the LORD your God will choose as a dwelling for His Name. Do this in the evening as the sun sets, at the same time you departed from Egypt.

And you shall roast it and eat it in the place the LORD your God will choose, and in the morning you shall return to your tents.

For six days you must eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day you shall hold a solemn assembly to the LORD your God, and you must not do any work.

You are to count off seven weeks from the time you first put the sickle to the standing grain.

And you shall celebrate the Feast of Weeks to the LORD your God with a freewill offering that you give in proportion to how the LORD your God has blessed you,

and you shall rejoice before the LORD your God in the place He will choose as a dwelling for His Name—you, your sons and daughters, your menservants and maidservants, and the Levite within your gates, as well as the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widows among you.

Remember that you were slaves in Egypt, and carefully follow these statutes.