The Law Concerning Witnesses

^15 (A)“One witness shall not rise against a man concerning any iniquity or any sin that he commits; by the mouth of two or three witnesses the matter shall be established. ¹⁶ If a false witness ^(B)rises against any man to testify against him of wrongdoing, ¹⁷ then both men in the controversy shall stand before the Lord, ^(C)before the priests and the judges who serve in those days. ¹⁸ And the judges shall make careful inquiry, and indeed, if the witness is a false witness, who has testified falsely against his brother, ^19 (D)then you shall do to him as he thought to have done to his brother; so ^(E)you shall put away the evil from among you. ^20 (F)And those who remain shall hear and fear, and hereafter they shall not again commit such evil among you. ^21 (G)Your eye shall not pity: ^(H)life shall be for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.

¹² “You shall make ^(A)tassels on the four corners of the clothing with which you cover yourself.

Laws of Sexual Morality

¹³ “If any man takes a wife, and goes in to her, and ^(B)detests her, ¹⁴ and charges her with shameful conduct, and brings a bad name on her, and says, ‘I took this woman, and when I came to her I found she was not a virgin,’ ¹⁵ then the father and mother of the young woman shall take and bring out the evidence of the young woman’s virginity to the elders of the city at the gate. ¹⁶ And the young woman’s father shall say to the elders, ‘I gave my daughter to this man as wife, and he detests her. ¹⁷ Now he has charged her with shameful conduct, saying, “I found your daughter was not a virgin,” and yet these are the evidences of my daughter’s virginity.’ And they shall spread the cloth before the elders of the city. ¹⁸ Then the elders of that city shall take that man and punish him; ¹⁹ and they shall fine him one hundred shekels of silver and give them to the father of the young woman, because he has brought a bad name on a virgin of Israel. And she shall be his wife; he cannot divorce her all his days.

²⁰ “But if the thing is true, and evidences of virginity are not found for the young woman, ²¹ then they shall bring out the young woman to the door of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death with ^(C)stones, because she has ^(D)done a disgraceful thing in Israel, to play the harlot in her father’s house. ^(E)So you shall ^[a]put away the evil from among you.

Concerning Unfaithful Wives

¹¹ And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ¹² “Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: ‘If any man’s wife goes astray and behaves unfaithfully toward him, ¹³ and a man ^(A)lies with her carnally, and it is hidden from the eyes of her husband, and it is concealed that she has defiled herself, and there was no witness against her, nor was she ^(B)caught— ¹⁴ if the spirit of jealousy comes upon him and he becomes ^(C)jealous of his wife, who has defiled herself; or if the spirit of jealousy comes upon him and he becomes jealous of his wife, although she has not defiled herself— ¹⁵ then the man shall bring his wife to the priest. He shall ^(D)bring the offering required for her, one-tenth of an ephah of barley meal; he shall pour no oil on it and put no frankincense on it, because it is a grain offering of jealousy, an offering for remembering, for ^(E)bringing iniquity to remembrance.

¹⁶ ‘And the priest shall bring her near, and set her before the Lord. ¹⁷ The priest shall take holy water in an earthen vessel, and take some of the dust that is on the floor of the tabernacle and put it into the water. ¹⁸ Then the priest shall stand the woman before the ^(F)Lord, uncover the woman’s head, and put the offering for remembering in her hands, which is the grain offering of jealousy. And the priest shall have in his hand the bitter water that brings a curse. ¹⁹ And the priest shall put her under oath, and say to the woman, “If no man has lain with you, and if you have not gone astray to uncleanness while under your husband’s authority, be free from this bitter water that brings a curse. ²⁰ But if you have gone astray while under your husband’s authority, and if you have defiled yourself and some man other than your husband has lain with you”— ²¹ then the priest shall ^(G)put the woman under the oath of the curse, and he shall say to the woman—^(H)“the Lord make you a curse and an oath among your people, when the Lord makes your thigh ^[a]rot and your belly swell; ²² and may this water that causes the curse ^(I)go into your stomach, and make your belly swell and your thigh rot.”

‘^(J)Then the woman shall say, “Amen, so be it.”

²³ ‘Then the priest shall write these curses in a book, and he shall scrape them off into the bitter water. ²⁴ And he shall make the woman drink the bitter water that brings a curse, and the water that brings the curse shall enter her to become bitter. ^25 (K)Then the priest shall take the grain offering of jealousy from the woman’s hand, shall ^(L)wave the offering before the Lord, and bring it to the altar; ²⁶ and the priest shall take a handful of the offering, ^(M)as its memorial portion, burn it on the altar, and afterward make the woman drink the water. ²⁷ When he has made her drink the water, then it shall be, if she has defiled herself and behaved unfaithfully toward her husband, that the water that brings a ^(N)curse will enter her and become bitter, and her belly will swell, her thigh will rot, and the woman ^(O)will become a curse among her people. ²⁸ But if the woman has not defiled herself, and is clean, then she shall be free and may conceive children.

²⁹ ‘This is the law of jealousy, when a wife, while under her husband’s authority, ^(P)goes astray and defiles herself, ³⁰ or when the spirit of jealousy comes upon a man, and he becomes jealous of his wife; then he shall stand the woman before the Lord, and the priest shall execute all this law upon her. ³¹ Then the man shall be free from ^[b]iniquity, but that woman ^(Q)shall bear her ^[c]guilt.’ ”