Exodus 23; Exodus 24; Matthew 20:1-16

1 "You must not tell lies. If you are a witness in court, don't help a wicked person by tell- ing lies.

2 "You must not do wrong just because everyone else is doing it. If you are a witness in court, you must not ruin a fair trial. You must not tell lies just because everyone else is.

3 If a poor person is in court, you must not take his side just because he is poor.

4 "If you see your enemy's ox or donkey wandering away, you must return it to him

5 If you see that your enemy's donkey has fallen because its load is too heavy, do not leave it there. You must help your enemy get the donkey back on its feet.

6 "You must not be unfair to a poor person when he is in court.

7 You must not lie when you accuse someone in court. Never allow an innocent or honest person to be put to death as punishment, because I will not treat guilty people as if they were innocent.

8 "You must not accept money from a person who wants you to lie in court, because such money will not let you see what is right. Such money makes good people tell lies.

9 "You must not mistreat a foreigner. You know how it feels to be a foreigner, because you were foreigners in Egypt.

10 "For six years you are to plant and harvest crops on your land.

11 Then during the seventh year, do not plow or plant your land. If any food grows there, allow the poor people to have it, and let the wild animals eat what is left. You should do the same with your vineyards and your orchards of olive trees.

12 "You should work six days a week, but on the seventh day you must rest. This lets your ox and your donkey rest, and it also lets the slave born in your house and the foreigner be refreshed.

13 "Be sure to do all that I have said to you. You must not even say the names of other gods; those names must not come out of your mouth.

14 "Three times each year you must hold a feast to honor me

15 You must celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread in the way I commanded you. For seven days you must eat bread that is made without yeast at the set time during the month of Abib, the month when you came out of Egypt. No one is to come to worship me without bringing an offering.

16 "You must celebrate the Feast of Weeks. Offer to God the first things you harvest from the crops you planted in your fields. "You must celebrate the Feast of Shelters in the fall, when you gather all the crops from your fields.

17 "So three times during every year all your males must come to worship the Lord God.

18 "You must not offer animal blood along with anything that has yeast in it. "You must not save any of the fat from the sacrifice for the next day.

19 "You must bring the best of the firstfruits of your land to the Holy Tentn of the Lord your God. "You must not cook a young goat in its mother's milk

20 "I am sending an angel ahead of you, who will protect you as you travel. He will lead you to the place I have prepared.

21 Pay attention to the angel and obey him. Do not turn against him; he will not forgive such turning against him because my power is in him

22 If you listen care- fully to all he says and do everything that I tell you, I will be an enemy to your enemies. I will fight all who fight against you.

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

24 "You must not bow down to their gods or worship them. You must not live the way those people live. You must destroy their idols, breaking into pieces the stone pillars they use in worship.

25 If you worship the Lord your God, I will bless your bread and your water. I will take away sickness from you.

26 None of your women will have her baby die before it is born, and all women will have children. I will allow you to live long lives.

27 "I will make your enemies afraid of me. I will confuse any people you fight against, and I will make all your enemies run away from you.

28 I will send terror ahead of you that will force the Hivites, Canaanites, and Hittites out of your way.

29 But I will not force all those people out in only one year. If I did, the land would become a desert and the wild animals would become too many for you.

30 Instead, I will force those people out slowly, until there are enough of you to take over the land.

31 "I will give you the land from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea, and from the desert to the Euphrates River. I will give you power over the people who now live in the land, and you will force them out ahead of you.

32 You must not make an agreement with those people or with their gods.

33 You must not let them live in your land, or they will make you sin against me. If you worship their gods, you will be caught in a trap."

1 The Lord told Moses, "You, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and seventy of the older leaders of Israel must come up to me and worship me from a distance.

2 Then Moses alone must come near me; the others must not come near. The rest of the people must not come up the mountain with Moses."

3 Moses told the people all the Lord's words and laws for living. Then all of the people answered out loud together, "We will do all the things the Lord has said."

4 So Moses wrote down all the words of the Lord. And he got up early the next morning and built an altar near the bottom of the mountain. He set up twelve stones, one stone for each of the twelve tribes of Israel.

5 Then Moses sent young Israelite men to offer whole burnt offerings and to sacrifice young bulls as fellowship offerings to the Lord.

6 Moses put half of the blood of these animals in bowls, and he sprinkled the other half of the blood on the altar.

7 Then he took the Book of the Agreement and read it so the people could hear him. And they said, "We will do everything that the Lord has said; we will obey."

8 Then Moses took the blood from the bowls and sprinkled it on the people, saying, "This is the blood that begins the Agreement, the Agreement which the Lord has made with you about all these words."

9 Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and seventy of the older leaders of Israel went up the mountain

10 and saw the God of Israel. Under his feet was a surface that looked as if it were paved with blue sapphire stones, and it was as clear as the sky!

11 These leaders of the Israelites saw God, but God did not destroy them. Then they ate and drank together.

12 The Lord said to Moses, "Come up the mountain to me. Wait there, and I will give you two stone tablets. On these are the teachings and the commands I have written to instruct the people."

13 So Moses and his helper Joshua set out, and Moses went up to Sinai, the mountain of God.

14 Moses said to the older leaders, "Wait here for us until we come back to you. Aaron and Hur are with you, and anyone who has a disagreement with others can take it to them."

15 When Moses went up on the mountain, the cloud covered it.

16 The glory of the Lord came down on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it for six days. On the seventh day the Lord called to Moses from inside the cloud.

17 To the Israelites the glory of the Lord looked like a fire burning on top of the mountain.

18 Then Moses went into the cloud and went higher up the mountain. He was on the mountain for forty days and forty nights.

1 "The kingdom of heaven is like a person who owned some land. One morning, he went out very early to hire some people to work in his vineyard.

2 The man agreed to pay the workers one coinn for working that day. Then he sent them into the vineyard to work.

3 About nine o'clock the man went to the marketplace and saw some other people standing there, doing nothing.

4 So he said to them, 'If you go and work in my vineyard, I will pay you what your work is worth.'

5 So they went to work in the vineyard. The man went out again about twelve o'clock and three o'clock and did the same thing.

6 About five o'clock the man went to the marketplace again and saw others standing there. He asked them, 'Why did you stand here all day doing nothing?'

7 They answered, 'No one gave us a job.' The man said to them, 'Then you can go and work in my vineyard.'

8 "At the end of the day, the owner of the vineyard said to the boss of all the workers, 'Call the workers and pay them. Start with the last people I hired and end with those I hired first.'

9 "When the workers who were hired at five o'clock came to get their pay, each received one coin.

10 When the workers who were hired first came to get their pay, they thought they would be paid more than the others. But each one of them also received one coin.

11 When they got their coin, they complained to the man who owned the land.

12 They said, 'Those people were hired last and worked only one hour. But you paid them the same as you paid us who worked hard all day in the hot sun.'

13 But the man who owned the vineyard said to one of those workers, 'Friend, I am being fair to you. You agreed to work for one coin.

14 So take your pay and go. I want to give the man who was hired last the same pay that I gave you.

15 I can do what I want with my own money. Are you jealous because I am good to those people?'

16 "So those who have the last place now will have the first place in the future, and those who have the first place now will have the last place in the future."