Deuteronomy 21-23

Amplified Bible, Classic Edition

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.^(A)

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,^(B)

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.^(C)

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.^(D)

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.^(E)

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

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

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.

23 He who is wounded in the testicles, or has been made a eunuch, shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord.

² A person begotten out of wedlock shall not enter into the assembly of the Lord; even to his tenth generation shall his descendants not enter into the congregation of the Lord.

³ An Ammonite or ^[a]Moabite shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord; even to their tenth generation their descendants shall not enter into the assembly of the Lord forever,

⁴ Because they did not meet you with food and water on the way when you came forth out of Egypt, and because they hired Balaam son of Beor of Pethor of Mesopotamia against you to curse you.

⁵ Nevertheless, the Lord your God would not listen to Balaam, but the Lord your God turned the curse into a blessing to you, because the Lord your God loves you.

⁶ You shall not seek their peace or their prosperity all your days forever.

⁷ You shall not abhor an Edomite, for he is your brother [Esau’s descendant]. You shall not abhor an Egyptian, because you were a stranger and temporary resident in his land.

⁸ Their children may enter into the congregation of the Lord in their third generation.

⁹ When you go forth against your enemies and are in camp, you shall keep yourselves from every evil thing.

¹⁰ If there is among you any man who is not clean by reason of what happens to him at night, then he shall go outside the camp; he shall not come within the camp;

¹¹ But when evening comes he shall bathe himself in water, and when the sun is down he may return to the camp.

¹² You shall have a place also outside the camp to which you shall go [as a comfort station];

¹³ And you shall have a paddle or shovel among your weapons, and when you sit down outside [to relieve yourself], you shall dig a hole with it and turn back and cover up what has come from you.

¹⁴ For the Lord your God walks in the midst of your camp to deliver you and to give up your enemies before you. Therefore shall your camp be holy, that He may see nothing indecent among you and turn away from you.

¹⁵ You shall not give up to his master a servant who has escaped from his master to you.

¹⁶ He shall dwell with you in your midst wherever he chooses in one of your towns where it pleases him best. You shall not defraud or oppress him.

¹⁷ There shall be no cult prostitute among the daughters of Israel, neither shall there be a cult prostitute (a sodomite) among the sons of Israel.

¹⁸ You shall not bring the hire of a harlot or the price of a dog (a sodomite) into the house of the Lord your God as payment of a vow, for both of these [the gift and the giver] are an abomination to the Lord your God.

¹⁹ You shall not lend on interest to your brother—interest on money, on victuals, on anything that is lent for interest.

²⁰ You may lend on interest to a foreigner, but to your brother you shall not lend on interest, that the Lord your God may bless you in all that you undertake in the land to which you go to possess it.

²¹ When you make a vow to the Lord your God, you shall not be slack in paying it, for the Lord your God will surely require it of you, and slackness would be sin in you.

²² But if you refrain from vowing, it will not be sin in you.

²³ The vow which has passed your lips you shall be watchful to perform, a voluntary offering which you have made to the Lord your God, which you have promised with your mouth.

²⁴ When you come into your neighbor’s vineyard, you may eat your fill of grapes, as many as you please, but you shall not put any in your vessel.

²⁵ When you come into the standing grain of your neighbor, you may pluck the ears with your hand, but you shall not put a sickle to your neighbor’s standing grain.