Deuteronomy 23-25

New American Standard Bible

Persons Excluded from the Assembly

23 “^(A)No one who is ^[a]emasculated or has his male organ cut off may enter the assembly of the Lord. ² No one of illegitimate birth may enter the assembly of the Lord; none of his descendants, even to the tenth generation, may enter the assembly of the Lord. ^3 (B)No Ammonite or Moabite may enter the assembly of the Lord; none of their descendants, even to the tenth generation, may ever enter the assembly of the Lord, ^4 (C)because they did not meet you with ^[b]food and water on the way when you came out of Egypt, and because they hired against you ^(D)Balaam the son of Beor from Pethor of ^[c]Mesopotamia, to curse you. ⁵ Nevertheless, the Lord your God was unwilling to listen to Balaam, but the Lord your God ^(E)turned the curse into a blessing for you because the Lord your God ^(F)loves you. ^6 (G)You shall never seek their peace or their prosperity all your days.

⁷ “You shall not loathe an ^[d]Edomite, for ^(H)he is your brother; you shall not loathe an Egyptian, ^(I)because you were a stranger in his land. ⁸ The sons of the third generation who are born to them may enter the assembly of the Lord.

⁹ “When you go out as ^[e]an army against your enemies, you shall be on guard against every evil thing.

¹⁰ “^(J)If there is among you any man who is unclean because of a nocturnal emission, then he must go outside the camp; he may not ^[f]reenter the camp. ¹¹ But when evening approaches, he shall bathe himself with water, and at sundown he may ^[g]reenter the camp.

¹² “You shall also have a place allocated outside the camp, so that you may go out there to relieve yourself, ¹³ and you shall have a ^[h]spade among your tools, and it shall be when you sit down outside, you shall dig with it and shall turn and cover up your excrement. ¹⁴ Since ^(K)the Lord your God walks in the midst of your camp to save you and to ^[i]defeat your enemies before you, your camp must be ^(L)holy; so He must not see ^[j]anything indecent among you ^[k]or He will turn away from you.

¹⁵ “^(M)You shall not hand over to his master a slave who has ^[l]escaped from his master to you. ¹⁶ He shall live with you in your midst, in the place that he chooses in one of your ^[m]towns where it pleases him; ^(N)you shall not mistreat him.

¹⁷ “^(O)None of the daughters of Israel shall be a cult prostitute, ^(P)nor shall any of the sons of Israel be a cult prostitute. ¹⁸ You shall not bring the earnings of a prostitute or the money for a ^[n](Q)dog into the house of the Lord your God as payment for any vowed offering, because both of these are an abomination to the Lord your God.

¹⁹ “^(R)You are not to charge interest to your countrymen: interest on money, food, or anything that may be loaned on interest. ^20 (S)You may charge interest to a foreigner, but to your countrymen you shall not charge interest, so that ^(T)the Lord your God may bless you in all ^[o]that you undertake in the land which you are about to enter to ^[p]possess.

²¹ “^(U)When you make a vow to the Lord your God, you shall not delay to pay it, for the Lord your God will certainly require it of you, and it will be a sin ^[q]for you. ²² However, if you refrain from making vows, it will not be a sin ^[r]for you. ²³ You shall be careful and perform what goes out of your lips, since in fact you have vowed a ^[s]voluntary offering to the Lord your God, whatever you have ^[t]promised.

²⁴ “When you enter your neighbor’s vineyard, you may eat grapes ^[u]until you are satisfied; but you are not to put any in your ^[v]basket.

²⁵ “^(V)When you enter your neighbor’s standing grain, you may pluck the heads of grain with your hand, but you are not to ^[w]use a sickle on your neighbor’s standing grain.

Law of Divorce

24 “When a man takes a wife and marries her, and it happens, if she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some ^(W)indecency in her, that ^(X)he writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and ^[x]sends her away from his house, ² and she leaves his house and goes and becomes another man’s wife, ³ and the latter husband ^[y]turns against her, writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand, and ^[z]sends her away from his house, or if the latter husband who took her to be his wife dies, ⁴ then her ^(Y)former husband who ^[aa]sent her away is not allowed to take her again to be his wife, after ^[ab]she has been defiled; for that is an abomination before the Lord, and you shall not bring sin on the land which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance.

⁵ “^(Z)When a man takes a new wife, he is not to go out with the army, nor be assigned any duty; he shall be free at home for one year and shall ^(AA)make his wife whom he has taken happy.

Various Laws

⁶ “No one shall seize a handmill or an upper millstone as a pledge for a loan, since he would be seizing the debtor’s ^[ac]means of life as a pledge.

⁷ “^(AB)If someone is ^[ad]caught kidnapping any of his countrymen of the sons of Israel, and he treats him as merchandise and sells him, then that thief shall die; so you shall eliminate the evil from among you.

⁸ “^(AC)Be careful about an infestation of leprosy, that you are very attentive and act in accordance with everything that the Levitical priests teach you; just as I have commanded them, you shall be careful to act. ⁹ Remember what the Lord your God did ^(AD)to Miriam on the way as you came out of Egypt.

¹⁰ “^(AE)When you make your neighbor a loan of any kind, you shall not enter his house to take his pledge. ¹¹ You shall stand outside, and the person to whom you are making the loan shall bring the pledge outside to you. ¹² And if he is a poor man, you shall not sleep with his pledge. ^13 (AF)When the sun goes down you shall certainly return the pledge to him, so that he may sleep in his cloak and bless you; and ^(AG)it will be righteousness for you before the Lord your God.

¹⁴ “^(AH)You shall not exploit a hired worker who is poor and needy, whether he is one of your countrymen or one of your strangers who are in your land in your ^[ae]towns. ^15 (AI)You shall give him his wages on his day ^[af]before the sun sets—for he is poor and sets his ^[ag]heart on it—so that ^(AJ)he does not cry out against you to the Lord, and it becomes a sin in you.

¹⁶ “^(AK)Fathers shall not be put to death for their sons, nor shall sons be put to death for their fathers; everyone shall be put to death for his own sin alone.

¹⁷ “^(AL)You shall not pervert the justice ^[ah]due a stranger or ^[ai]an orphan, nor ^(AM)seize a widow’s garment as a ^[aj]pledge. ¹⁸ But you are to remember that you were a slave in Egypt, and that the Lord your God redeemed you from there; therefore I am commanding you to do this thing.

¹⁹ “^(AN)When you reap your harvest in your field and forget a sheaf in the field, you are not to go back to get it; it shall belong ^(AO)to the stranger, the ^[ak]orphan, and to the widow, in order that the Lord your God ^(AP)may bless you in all the work of your hands. ^20 (AQ)When you beat the olives off your olive tree, you are not to search through the branches ^[al]again; that shall be left ^(AR)for the stranger, the ^[am]orphan, and for the widow.

²¹ “When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, you are not to ^[an]go over it again; that shall be left for the stranger, the ^[ao]orphan, and the widow. ²² And you shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt; therefore I am commanding you to do this thing.

Various Laws

25 “^(AS)If there is a dispute between people and they go to ^[ap]court, and ^[aq]the judges decide their case, ^(AT)and they declare the righteous innocent and pronounce the wicked guilty, ² then it shall be if the wicked person ^[ar](AU)deserves to be beaten, the judge shall then make him lie down and have him beaten in his presence with the number of lashes according to his ^[as]wrongful act. ^3 (AV)He may have him beaten forty times, but not more, so that he does not have him beaten with many more lashes than these, and that your brother does not ^(AW)become contemptible in your eyes.

⁴ “^(AX)You shall not muzzle the ox while it is threshing.

⁵ “When brothers live together, and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of the deceased shall not be married outside the family to a strange man. ^(AY)Her husband’s brother shall have relations with her and take her to himself as his wife, and perform the duty of a husband’s brother to her. ⁶ It shall then be that the firstborn to whom she gives birth shall ^[at]assume the name of his father’s deceased brother, so that ^(AZ)his name will not be wiped out from Israel. ^7 (BA)But if the man does not desire to take his brother’s widow, then his brother’s widow shall go up to the gate to the elders, and say, ‘My husband’s brother refuses to establish a name for his brother in Israel; he is not willing to perform the duty of a husband’s brother to me.’ ⁸ Then the elders of his city shall summon him and speak to him. And if he persists and says, ‘I do not desire to take her,’ ^9 (BB)then his brother’s widow shall come up to him in the sight of the elders, and pull his sandal off his foot and ^(BC)spit in his face; and she shall ^[au]declare, ‘This is what is done to the man who does not build up his brother’s house!’ ¹⁰ And in Israel ^[av]his family shall be called by the name, ‘The house of him whose sandal was removed.’

¹¹ “If two men, a man and his countryman, have a fight ^[aw]with each other, and the wife of one comes up to save her husband from the hand of the one who is hitting him, and she reaches out with her hand and grasps ^[ax]that man’s genitals, ¹² then you shall cut off her ^[ay]hand; ^[az](BD)you shall not show pity.

¹³ “^(BE)You shall not have in your bag ^[ba]differing weights, a large and a small. ¹⁴ You shall not have in your house ^[bb]differing measures, a large and a small. ¹⁵ You shall have a correct and honest ^[bc]weight; you shall have a correct and honest ^[bd]measure, ^(BF)so that your days may be prolonged ^[be]in the land which the Lord your God is giving you. ¹⁶ For ^(BG)everyone who does these things, everyone who acts unjustly is an abomination to the Lord your God.

¹⁷ “^(BH)Remember what Amalek did to you on the way when you came out of Egypt, ¹⁸ how he confronted you on the way and attacked among you all the stragglers at your rear when you were tired and weary; and he ^(BI)did not ^[bf]fear God. ¹⁹ So it shall come about, when the Lord your God has given you ^(BJ)rest from all your surrounding enemies in the land which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance to ^[bg]possess, that you shall wipe out the mention of the name Amalek from under heaven; you must not forget.