Deuteronomy 20-22

Amplified Bible, Classic Edition

20 When you go forth to battle against your enemies and see horses and chariots and an army greater than your own, do not be afraid of them, for the Lord your God, Who brought you out of the land of Egypt, is with you.

² And when you come near to the battle, the priest shall approach and speak to the men,

³ And shall say to them, Hear, O Israel, you draw near this day to battle against your enemies. Let not your [minds and] hearts faint; fear not, and do not tremble or be terrified [and in dread] because of them.

⁴ For the Lord your God is He Who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to save you.^(A)

⁵ And the officers shall speak to the people, saying, What man is there who has built a new house and has not dedicated it? Let him return to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man dedicate it.

⁶ And what man has planted a vineyard and has not used the fruit of it? Let him also return to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man use the fruit of it.

⁷ And what man has betrothed a wife and has not taken her? Let him return to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man take her.

⁸ And the officers shall speak further to the people, and say, What man is fearful and fainthearted? Let him return to his house, lest [because of him] his brethren’s [minds and] hearts faint as does his own.

⁹ And when the officers finish speaking to the people, they shall appoint commanders at the head of the people.

¹⁰ When you draw near to a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace to it.

¹¹ And if that city makes an answer of peace to you and opens to you, then all the people found in it shall be tributary to you and they shall serve you.

¹² But if it refuses to make peace with you and fights against you, then you shall besiege it.

¹³ And when the Lord your God has given it into your hands, you shall smite every male there with the edge of the sword.

¹⁴ But the women, the little ones, the beasts, and all that is in the city, all the spoil in it, you shall take for yourselves; and you shall use the spoil of your enemies which the Lord your God has given you.

¹⁵ So shall you treat all the cities that are very far off from you, that do not belong to the cities of these nations.

¹⁶ But in the cities of these people which the Lord your God gives you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes.

¹⁷ But you shall utterly exterminate them, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, as the Lord your God has commanded you,

¹⁸ So that they may not teach you all the abominable practices they have carried on for their gods, and so cause you to sin against the Lord your God.

¹⁹ When you besiege a city for a long time, making war against it to take it, you shall not destroy its trees by using an ax on them, for you can eat their fruit; you must not cut them down, for is the tree of the field a man, that it should be besieged by you?

²⁰ Only the trees which you know are not trees for food you may destroy and cut down, that you may build siege works against the city that makes war with you until it falls.

21 If one is found slain in the land which the Lord your God gives you to possess, lying in the field, and it is not known who has killed him,

² Then your elders and judges shall come forth and measure the distance to the cities around him who is slain.

³ And the city which is nearest to the slain man, the elders of that city shall take a heifer which has never been worked, never pulled in the yoke,

⁴ And the elders of that city shall bring the heifer down to a valley with running water which is neither plowed nor sown, and shall break the heifer’s neck there in the valley.

⁵ And the priests, the sons of Levi, shall come near, for the Lord your God has chosen them to minister to Him and to bless in the name [and presence] of the Lord, and by their word shall every controversy and every assault be settled.

⁶ And all the elders of that city nearest to the slain man shall wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the valley,

⁷ And they shall testify, Our hands have not shed this blood, neither have our eyes seen it.

⁸ Forgive, O Lord, Your people Israel, whom You have redeemed, and do not allow the shedding of innocent blood to be charged to Your people Israel. And the guilt of blood shall be forgiven them.

⁹ So shall you purge the guilt of innocent blood from among you, when you do what is right in the sight of the Lord.

¹⁰ When you go forth to battle against your enemies and the Lord your God has given them into your hands and you carry them away captive,

¹¹ And you see among the captives a beautiful woman and desire her, that you may have her as your wife,

¹² Then you shall bring her home to your house, and she shall shave her head and pare her nails [in purification from heathenism]

¹³ And put off her prisoner’s garb, and shall remain in your house and bewail her father and her mother a full month. After that you may go in to her and be her husband and she shall be your wife.

¹⁴ And if you have no delight in her, then you shall let her go absolutely free. You shall not sell her at all for money; you shall not deal with her as a slave or a servant, because you have humbled her.

¹⁵ If a man has two wives, one loved and the other disliked, and they both have borne him children, and if the firstborn son is the son of the one who is disliked,

¹⁶ Then on the day when he wills his possessions to his sons, he shall not put the firstborn of his loved wife in place of the [actual] firstborn of the disliked wife—her firstborn being older.

¹⁷ But he shall acknowledge the son of the disliked as the firstborn by giving him a double portion of all that he has, for he was the first issue of his strength; the right of the firstborn is his.

¹⁸ If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or his mother and though they chasten him will not listen to them,

¹⁹ Then his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gate of the place where he lives,

²⁰ And they shall say to the elders of his city, This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey our voice. He is a glutton and a drunkard.^(B)

²¹ Then all the men of his city shall stone him to death; so you shall cleanse out the evil from your midst, and all Israel shall hear and [reverently] fear.

²² And if a man has committed a sin worthy of death and he is put to death and [afterward] you hang him on a tree,^(C)

²³ His body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but you shall surely bury him on the same day, for a hanged man is accursed by God. Thus you shall not defile your land which the Lord your God gives you for an inheritance.^(D)

22 You shall not see your brother’s ox or his sheep being driven away or stolen, and hide yourself from [your duty to help] them; you shall surely take them back to your brother.^(E)

² And if your brother [the owner] is not near you or if you do not know who he is, you shall bring the animal to your house and it shall be with you until your brother comes looking for it; then you shall restore it to him.

³ And so shall you do with his donkey or his garment or with anything which your brother has lost and you have found. You shall not hide from [your duty concerning] them.

⁴ You shall not see your brother’s donkey or his ox fall down by the way, and hide from [your duty concerning] them; you shall surely help him to lift them up again.

⁵ The woman shall not wear that which pertains to a man, neither shall a man put on a woman’s garment, for all that do so are an abomination to the Lord your God.

⁶ If a bird’s nest should chance to be before you in the way, in any tree or on the ground, with young ones or eggs, and the mother bird is sitting on the young or on the eggs, you shall not take the mother bird with the young.

⁷ You shall surely let the mother bird go, and take only the young, that it may be well with you and that you may prolong your days.

⁸ When you build a new house, then you shall put a railing around your [flat] roof, so that no one may fall from there and bring guilt of blood upon your house.

⁹ You shall not plant your vineyard with two kinds of seed, lest the whole crop be forfeited [under this ban], the seed which you have sown and the yield of the vineyard forfeited to the sanctuary.

¹⁰ You shall not plow with an ox [a clean animal] and a donkey [unclean] together.^(F)

¹¹ You shall not wear a garment of mingled stuff, wool and linen together.^(G)

¹² You shall make yourself tassels on the four corners of your cloak with which you cover yourself.^(H)

¹³ If any man takes a wife and goes in to her, and then scorns her

¹⁴ And charges her with shameful things and gives her an evil reputation, and says, I took this woman, but when I came to her, I did not find in her the tokens of a virgin,

¹⁵ Then the father of the young woman, and her mother, shall get and bring out the tokens of her virginity to the elders of the city at the gate.

¹⁶ And her father shall say to the elders, I gave my daughter to this man as wife, but he hates and spurns her;

¹⁷ And behold, he has made shameful charges against her, saying, I found not in your daughter the evidences of her virginity. And yet these are the tokens of my daughter’s virginity. And they shall spread the garment before the elders of the city,

¹⁸ And the elders of that city shall take the man and rebuke and whip him.

¹⁹ And they shall fine him 100 shekels of silver and give them to the father of the young woman, because he has brought an evil name upon a virgin of Israel. And she shall be his wife; he may not divorce her all his days.

²⁰ But if it is true that the evidences of virginity were not found in the young woman,

²¹ Then they shall bring her to the door of her father’s house and the men of her city shall stone her to death, because she has wrought [criminal] folly in Israel by playing the harlot in her father’s house. So you shall put away the evil from among you.

²² If a man is found lying with another man’s wife, they shall both die, the man who lay with the woman and the woman. So you shall purge the evil from Israel.

²³ If a maiden who is a virgin is engaged to be married, and a man finds her in the city and lies with her,

²⁴ Then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city and shall stone them to death—the young woman because she did not cry for help though she was in the city, and the man because he has violated his neighbor’s [promised] wife. So shall you put away evil from among you.

²⁵ But if a man finds the betrothed maiden in the open country and the man seizes her and lies with her, then only the man who lay with her shall die.

²⁶ But you shall do nothing to the young woman; she has committed no sin punishable by death, for this is as when a man attacks and slays his neighbor,

²⁷ For he came upon her in the open country, and the betrothed girl cried out, but there was no one to save her.

²⁸ If a man finds a girl who is a virgin, who is not betrothed, and he seizes her and lies with her and they are found,

²⁹ Then the man who lay with her shall give to the girl’s father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife, because he has violated her; he may not divorce her all his days.

³⁰ A man shall not take his father’s former wife, nor shall he uncover her who belongs to his father.