(1) These are the mishpatim (laws, ordinances/justice) that you shall set before them: (2) When you acquire a Hebrew slave, that person shall serve six years—and shall go free in the seventh year, without payment.

(37) When a man steals an ox or a sheep, and slaughters it or sells it, he shall pay five oxen for the ox, and four sheep for the sheep.— (1) If the thief is seized while tunneling, and he is beaten to death, there is no bloodguilt in his case. (2) If the sun has risen on him, there is bloodguilt in that case.—He must make restitution; if he lacks the means, he shall be sold for his theft. (3) But if what he stole—whether ox or ass or sheep—is found alive in his possession, he shall pay double.

Our Rabbis taught: (It says in Leviticus 18) “My laws (mishpatai) you shall perform...” i.e., such commandments which, even if had not been written, justice would demand that they should be written. And these are: idolatry, sexual immorality, murder, theft and blasphemy.

“...and My decrees (chukotai) you shall keep...” i.e., such commandments that the Satan challenges. And they are: not eating pork, not wearing wool and linen, the exemption procedure from the obligation to marry a widowed sister-in-law, the purification of the leper, and the Yom Kippur scapegoat sacrifice. Perhaps you will say, these are empty things! Therefore, the verse ends: “...I am the Eternal.” In other words, I, the Eternal, have decreed it, and you are not allowed to question it!

(6) You shall not subvert the mishpat of your needy in their disputes. (7) Keep far from a false charge; do not bring death on those who are innocent and in the right, for I will not acquit the wrongdoer. (8) Do not take bribes, for bribes blind the clear-sighted and upset the pleas of those who are in the right. (9) You shall not oppress a stranger, for you know the feelings of the stranger, having yourselves been strangers in the land of Egypt.

(10) Six years you shall sow your land and gather in its yield; (11) but in the seventh you shall let it rest and lie fallow. Let the needy among your people eat of it, and what they leave let the wild beasts eat. You shall do the same with your vineyards and your olive groves. (12) Six days you shall do your work, but on the seventh day you shall cease from labor, in order that your ox and your ass may rest, and that your home-born slave and the stranger may be refreshed. (13) Be on guard concerning all that I have told you. Make no mention of the names of other gods; they shall not be heard on your lips. (14) Three times a year you shall hold a festival for Me: (15) You shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread—eating unleavened bread for seven days as I have commanded you—at the set time in the month of spring, for in it you went forth from Egypt; and none shall appear before Me empty-handed; (16) and the Feast of the Harvest, of the first fruits of your work, of what you sow in the field; and the Feast of Ingathering at the end of the year, when you gather in the results of your work from the field. (17) Three times a year all your males shall appear before the Sovereign, the Eternal. (18) You shall not offer the blood of My sacrifice with anything leavened; and the fat of My festal offering shall not be left lying until morning. (19) The choice first fruits of your soil you shall bring to the house of your God the Eternal. You shall not boil a kid in its mother’s milk.

(20) I am sending a messenger before you to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place that I have made ready.

(44) This is the Torah that Moses set before Israel: (45) these are the eidot, hukim, and mishpatim that Moses addressed to the people of Israel, after they had left Egypt,

(20) When, in time to come, your children ask you, “What mean the eidot, hukim, and mishpatim that our God the Eternal has enjoined upon you? (21) you shall say to your children, “We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt and the Eternal freed us from Egypt with a mighty hand.