About Battles

20 “When you go to battle against those who hate you and see more horses and war-wagons and soldiers than you have, do not be afraid of them. For the Lord your God, Who brought you from the land of Egypt, is with you. ² When you are coming near the battle, the religious leader will come near and speak to the people. ³ He will say to them, ‘Hear, O Israel. Today you are going into battle against those who hate you. Do not let your hearts become weak. Do not be afraid and shake in fear before them. ⁴ For the Lord your God is the One Who goes with you. He will fight for you against those who hate you. And He will save you.’ ⁵ The leaders will speak to the people also, saying, ‘Is there anyone among you who has built a new house and has not given it to God? Let him go and return to his house or he might die in battle and another man will give it to God. ⁶ Is there anyone who has planted grape vines and has not begun to eat their fruit? Let him go and return to his house or he might die in the battle and another man will begin to eat the fruit. ⁷ Is there a man who is promised in marriage to a woman and has not married her? Let him go and return to his house or he might die in the battle and another man marry her.’ ⁸ Then the leaders will say to the people, ‘Is there a man here who is afraid and is weak in heart? Let him go and return to his house so he will not make his brothers’ hearts afraid like his heart.’ ⁹ When the leaders have finished speaking to the people, they will choose heads of the army to lead the people.

¹⁰ “When you come near a city to fight against it, ask the people of the city if they would rather have peace. ¹¹ If they agree to make peace with you and open their gates to you, all the people who are found there will be made to work for you and serve you. ¹² But if they do not make peace with you and fight against you, you must take the city in battle. ¹³ When the Lord your God gives the city to you, you must kill all the men in it with the sword. ¹⁴ Take for yourselves what is left, the women, the children, all the animals, and all that is in the city. Use what is left of those who fought against you, which the Lord your God has given you. ¹⁵ Do this to all the cities that are very far from you and are not of the cities of the nations that are near. ¹⁶ But in the cities of these nations that the Lord your God is giving you for your own, do not leave alive anything that breathes. ¹⁷ Destroy everything and everyone in them, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite and the Jebusite, as the Lord your God has told you. ¹⁸ Then they will not teach you to do all the hated and sinful things they have done for their gods, and make you sin against the Lord your God.

¹⁹ “When you stay around a city a long time, to make war against it and take it, do not destroy its trees with the ax. You may eat from them but do not cut them down. For are trees of the field men that they should be killed? ²⁰ You may destroy and cut down only the trees you know are not fruit trees. Then you may build walls with the trees to help you fight against the city that makes war with you, until it falls.

About Killing Someone

21 “If a person has been killed and is found lying in a field in the land the Lord your God is giving you for your own and it is not known who killed him, ² then your leaders and judges will go out and see how far it is to the cities that are around the dead man. ³ The leaders of the city that is nearest to the dead man will take a young cow from the cattle. The cow must never have been worked or pulled a plow. ⁴ The leaders of that city will bring the young cow down to a valley with flowing water, which has not been plowed or planted. They will break the cow’s neck there in the valley. ⁵ Then the religious leaders, the sons of Levi, will come near for the Lord your God has chosen them to serve Him and to bring good in the name of the Lord. Every question about what is right and every fight will be decided upon by them. ⁶ All the leaders of that city nearest to the dead man will wash their hands over the young cow whose neck was broken in the valley. ⁷ Then they will say, ‘Our hands have not killed him. Our eyes have not seen it. ⁸ O Lord, forgive Your people Israel whom You have set free. Do not put the guilt of killing a man who did no wrong on Your people Israel.’ And they will be forgiven from the guilt of the man’s death. ⁹ So you must take away the guilt of taking the life of a good man by doing what is right in the eyes of the Lord.

Marrying a Woman Taken in Battle

¹⁰ “When you go out to battle against those who hate you, and the Lord your God gives them to you, and you make them go with you, ¹¹ and you see a beautiful woman and have a desire for her as a wife, ¹² bring her home to your house. There she will cut off all the hair from her head and cut her nails. ¹³ She will change the clothes she wore when you took her away, and stay in your house. She will have sorrow for her father and mother for one month. After that you may go in to her and be her husband and she will be your wife. ¹⁴ If you are not pleased with her, you should let her go wherever she wants. But do not sell her for money or act as if she were a servant because you have put her to shame.

¹⁵ “If a man has two wives, one loved and the other not loved, and both the loved and the one not loved have borne him sons, and if the first-born son belongs to the wife who is not loved, ¹⁶ on the day when the man divides what he has for his sons, he cannot make the first-born of his loved wife the first-born before the son of the wife who is not loved, who is the first-born. ¹⁷ He must respect the first-born, the son of the wife who is not loved, by giving him twice the share of all he has. He is the beginning of his strength and the right of the first-born belongs to him.

¹⁸ “If a man has a strong-willed son who goes against him and does not obey his father or mother and when they punish him he will not even listen to them, ¹⁹ then his father and mother will take hold of him and bring him to the leaders of his city at the gate of his city. ²⁰ They will say to the leaders of his city, ‘This son of ours is strong-willed and goes against us. He will not obey us. He eats and drinks too much.’ ²¹ Then all the men of his city will kill him with stones. You must get rid of the sin from among you. All Israel will hear about it and be afraid.

²² “If a man has sinned and should be put to death and he is put to death and you hang him on a tree, ²³ his body must not hang all night on the tree. You should be sure to bury him on the same day (for he who hangs is cursed by God). So do not make your land unclean which the Lord your God is giving you.

22 “If you see your brother’s bull or sheep walking away, do not pretend that you do not see them. Be sure to return them to your brother. ² If your brother is not home, or if you do not know who he is, then bring the animal to your house. Keep it there until your brother looks for it. Then return it to him. ³ Do the same with his donkey, or his coat, or anything lost by your brother. If you find what he has lost, you must help him. ⁴ If you see your brother’s donkey or his ox fallen down by the road, do not pretend that you do not see them. Be sure to help him lift them up again.

⁵ “A woman must not wear men’s clothing. And a man must not put on women’s clothing. For the Lord your God hates whoever does these things.

⁶ “You might find a bird’s nest by the road, in a tree or on the ground, with young ones or eggs. If you find the mother sitting on the young or on the eggs, do not take the mother with the young. ⁷ Be sure to let the mother go. But you may take the young for yourself. Then it will go well with you, and you will live long.

⁸ “When you build a new house, you should put a short wall around your roof. Then no one will fall from it and bring the guilt of blood upon your house.

⁹ “Do not plant among your vines another kind of seed. All that grows from what you have planted will be unclean. ¹⁰ Do not plow with a bull and a donkey together. ¹¹ Do not wear clothing made of both wool and linen together.

¹² “Make tassels to put on the four corners of the clothing you use to cover yourself.

Law of Those Who Are Not Faithful in Marriage

¹³ “If a man takes a wife and goes in to her and decides he does not like her, ¹⁴ and says that she did sinful acts and puts her to shame before others and says, ‘I took this woman, but when I came near her, I found that she had been with another man,’ ¹⁵ then the girl’s father and mother should bring what is needed to prove she has not been with another man to the leaders of the city at the gate. ¹⁶ The girl’s father will say to the leaders, ‘I gave my daughter to this man for a wife. But he turned against her. ¹⁷ He said she has done sinful acts, saying, “I found that your daughter has been with another man.” But I brought what will prove that my daughter has not been with another man.’ And they will spread the clothing in front of the leaders of the city. ¹⁸ Then the leaders of that city will take the man and punish him. ¹⁹ They will make him pay a hundred pieces of silver and give it to the girl’s father, because he has put to shame the name of an Israelite girl who has not had a man. She will still be his wife. He cannot divorce her as long as he lives. ²⁰ But if it is true that the girl was found to have had another man, ²¹ then they will bring the girl to the door of her father’s house. There the men of her city will kill her with stones, because she has done a foolish act in Israel by acting in her father’s house like a woman who sells the use of her body. So you will get rid of the sin from among you.

²² “If a man is found lying with a married woman, then both of them must die, the man who lay with the woman, and the woman. So you will get rid of the sin from Israel.

²³ “If a girl who has never had a man is promised in marriage to a man, another man might find her in the city and lie with her. ²⁴ Then you must bring them both to the gate of that city and kill them with stones. Put the girl to death because she did not cry for help in the city, and the man because he has sinned against his neighbor’s wife. So you will get rid of the sin from among you. ²⁵ But if the man finds a girl in the field who is promised in marriage, and makes her lie with him, then only the man who lies with her will die. ²⁶ Do nothing to the girl. There is no sin in the girl bad enough for her to be put to death. It is as if a man goes against his neighbor and kills him. ²⁷ When he found her in the field, the girl promised in marriage cried out. But there was no one to save her.

²⁸ “If a man finds a girl who has never had a man and is not promised in marriage, and takes her and lies with her, and they are found, ²⁹ then the man who lay with her must give fifty pieces of silver to the girl’s father. And she will become his wife, because he has put her to shame. He cannot divorce her as long as he lives.

³⁰ “A man must not take his father’s wife. He must not take the clothes off the woman who belongs to his father.