Citizenship rights
23
📚He who has been emasculated by crushing or cutting in his private parts shall not enter the congregation of the LORD.23:1 The people in that region and time sometimes mutilated themselves for their gods. This instruction was probably aimed at preventing the introduction of this heathen practice into Israel.⚜
2 📚No one born of an illegal union 📖 shall enter the congregation of the LORD; none of his descendants, even to the tenth generation, shall enter the congregation of the LORD.
3 📚An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter the congregation of the LORD; none of their descendants, even to their tenth generation, shall ever enter the congregation of the LORD, 4 📚because they did not meet you with bread and water along the way when you came up out of Egypt, and because they hired against you Balaam the son of Beor of Pethor of Mesopotamia, to curse you.
23:3-4 See Matt 25:41-46; Num 22:1-6. Failure to show ordinary kindness to the needy, and a desire to bring a curse on God’s people are both very grievous sins in God’s eyes. On sins of omission see Num 32:23; 1 Sam 12:23; Matt 25:24-27, 41-46; 1 Tim 5:8.⚜
5 📚However, the LORD your God would not listen to Balaam, but the LORD your God turned the curse into a blessing for you, because the LORD your God loved you.
23:5 This was a display of God’s wonderful working on behalf of His people. See note at Gen 50:20.⚜
6 📚All your days you must never seek their peace or their prosperity.
23:6 This was commanded in this specific case because God was working out His justice toward a sinful people.⚜
7 📚You must not despise an Edomite, for he is your brother. You must not despise an Egyptian, because you were a foreigner in his land. 8 📚The third generation of children who are born to them may enter the congregation of the LORD.
Various rules and laws
9 📚When the army goes out against your enemies, then keep yourselves from every wicked thing. 10 📚If there is any man among you who is not clean because of uncleanness that happens to him at night, then he must go outside the camp. That day he must not come into the camp. 11 📚But it shall be like this: when evening comes, he must wash himself with water; and when the sun sets, he may come into the camp again.
12 Also you must have a place outside the camp where you go to relieve yourselves, 13 📚and you must have a spade with your equipment and it shall be, when you relieve yourself outside, you must dig a hole with it, and turn back and cover your excrement; 14 📚for the LORD your God walks about in your camp to protect you, and to deliver your enemies to you. Therefore your camp must be holy, so that he does not see any unclean thing among you and turn away from you.
15 📚You must not hand over to his master the slave who has escaped from his master to you; 16 📚he shall live with you, among you, in the place he chooses inside one of your gates, wherever it pleases him most. You must not oppress him.
17 📚There must be no daughter of Israel who is a temple prostitute, or a son of Israel who is a temple prostitute.
23:17 This was a practice among the nations in that area and time which did not know the true God.⚜
18 📚You must not bring the earnings of a prostitute or the earnings of a dog 📖 into the house of the LORD your God for any vow; for both of these are abominations to the LORD your God.
19 📚You must not lend anything on interest to your brother, interest on money, interest on food items, interest on anything that is lent on interest. 20 📚You may lend on interest to a foreigner, but you must not lend on interest to your brother; so that the LORD your God may bless you in all to which you set your hand in the land that you are going to possess.
23:19-20 Loans to foreigners were probably business deals and interest could rightly be charged. But loans to fellow countrymen were loans to the poor who could not afford to pay interest, so none should be charged them. (Note also at Deut 15:3).⚜
21 📚When you make a vow to the LORD your God, you must not be slow to pay it. If you are, the LORD your God will surely require it from you, and you will be guilty of sin. 22 But if you refrain from making a vow, you will not be guilty of sin. 23 📚You must be careful to do according to what goes out of your lips, a voluntary offering, just as you have vowed to the LORD your God; which you have promised with your mouth.
24 📚When you enter your neighbour’s vineyard, then you may eat grapes as you wish until you are satisfied, but you must not put any in your container. 25 📚When you enter the standing grain of your neighbour, then you may pluck the heads with your hand, but you must not put a sickle to your neighbour’s standing grain.