Study Desk

Now Jethro, the priest of Midian, Moses' father-in-law, heard of all that God had done for Moses and for Israel His people, how the LORD had brought Israel out of Egypt.

Then Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, came with his sons and his wife to Moses in the wilderness where he was camped, at the mount of God.

Then Moses went out to meet his father-in-law, and he bowed down and kissed him; and they asked each other of their welfare and went into the tent.

Moses told his father-in-law all that the LORD had done to Pharaoh and to the Egyptians for Israel's sake, all the hardship that had befallen them on the journey, and how the LORD had delivered them.

Moses said to his father-in-law, "Because the people come to me to inquire of God.

"When they have a dispute, it comes to me, and I judge between a man and his neighbor and make known the statutes of God and His laws."

So Moses listened to his father-in-law and did all that he had said.

Then Moses bade his father-in-law farewell, and he went his way into his own land.

"You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain.

"You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor."

"If he comes alone, he shall go out alone; if he is the husband of a wife, then his wife shall go out with him.

"If his master gives him a wife, and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall belong to her master, and he shall go out alone.

then his master shall bring him to God, then he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost. And his master shall pierce his ear with an awl; and he shall serve him permanently.

"If a man sells his daughter as a female slave, she is not to go free as the male slaves do.

"If she is displeasing in the eyes of her master who designated her for himself, then he shall let her be redeemed. He does not have authority to sell her to a foreign people because of his unfairness to her.

"If he designates her for his son, he shall deal with her according to the custom of daughters.

"But if he did not lie in wait for him, but God let him fall into his hand, then I will appoint you a place to which he may flee.

"If, however, a man acts presumptuously toward his neighbor, so as to kill him craftily, you are to take him even from My altar, that he may die.

"He who strikes his father or his mother shall surely be put to death.

"He who kidnaps a man, whether he sells him or he is found in his possession, shall surely be put to death.