The Wilderness Years

because the needy one doth not cease out of the land, therefore I am commanding thee, saying, Thou dost certainly open thy hand to thy brother, to thy poor, and to thy needy one, in thy land.

`When thy brother is sold to thee, a Hebrew or a Hebrewess, and he hath served thee six years--then in the seventh year thou dost send him away free from thee.

And when thou dost send him away free from thee, thou dost not send him away empty;

thou dost certainly encircle him out of thy flock, and out of thy threshing-floor, and out of thy wine-vat; of that which Jehovah thy God hath blessed thee thou dost give to him,

and thou hast remembered that a servant thou hast been in the land of Egypt, and Jehovah thy God doth ransom thee; therefore I am commanding thee this thing to-day.

`And it hath been, when he saith unto thee, I go not out from thee--because he hath loved thee, and thy house, because it is good for him with thee--

then thou hast taken the awl, and hast put it through his ear, and through the door, and he hath been to thee a servant age-during; and also to thy handmaid thou dost do so.

`It is not hard in thine eyes, in thy sending him away free from thee; for the double of the hire of an hireling he hath served thee six years, and Jehovah thy God hath blessed thee in all that thou dost.

`Every firstling that is born in thy herd and in thy flock--the male thou dost sanctify to Jehovah thy God; thou dost not work with the firstling of thine ox, nor shear the firstling of thy flock;

before Jehovah thy God thou dost eat it year by year, in the place which Jehovah doth choose, thou and thy house.

`And when there is in it a blemish, lame, or blind, any evil blemish, thou dost not sacrifice it to Jehovah thy God;

within thy gates thou dost eat it, the unclean and the clean alike, as the roe, and as the hart.

Only, its blood thou dost not eat; on the earth thou dost pour it as water.

`Observe the month of Abib--and thou hast made a passover to Jehovah thy God, for in the month of Abib hath Jehovah thy God brought thee out of Egypt by night;

and thou hast sacrificed a passover to Jehovah thy God, of the flock, and of the herd, in the place which Jehovah doth choose to cause His name to tabernacle there.

`Thou dost not eat with it any fermented thing, seven days thou dost eat with it unleavened things, bread of affliction; for in haste thou hast come out of the land of Egypt; so that thou dost remember the day of thy coming out of the land of Egypt all days of thy life;

and there is not seen with thee leaven in all thy border seven days, and there doth not remain of the flesh which thou dost sacrifice at evening on the first day till morning.

`Thou art not able to sacrifice the passover within any of thy gates which Jehovah thy God is giving to thee,

except at the place which Jehovah thy God doth choose to cause His name to tabernacle--there thou dost sacrifice the passover in the evening, at the going in of the sun, the season of thy coming out of Egypt;

and thou hast cooked and eaten in the place on which Jehovah thy God doth fix, and hast turned in the morning, and gone to thy tents;

six days thou dost eat unleavened things, and on the seventh day is a restraint to Jehovah thy God; thou dost do no work.

`Seven weeks thou dost number to thee; from the beginning of the sickle among the standing corn thou dost begin to number seven weeks,

and thou hast made the feast of weeks to Jehovah thy God, a tribute of a free-will offering of thy hand, which thou dost give, as Jehovah thy God doth bless thee.

And thou hast rejoiced before Jehovah thy God, thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, and thy man-servant, and thy handmaid, and the Levite who is within thy gates, and the sojourner, and the fatherless, and the widow, who are in thy midst, in the place which Jehovah thy God doth choose to cause His name to tabernacle there,

and thou hast remembered that a servant thou hast been in Egypt, and hast observed and done these statutes.