Caring for Your Brother’s Property

22 ‘If you see your brother Israelite’s ox or sheep straying, do not ignore it; make sure you return it to your brother. ² If your brother does not live near you or you don’t know him, you are to bring the animal to your home to remain with you until your brother comes looking for it; then you can return it to him. ³ Do the same for his donkey, his garment, or anything your brother has lost and you have found. You must not ignore it.^{(A) 4} If you see your brother’s donkey or ox fallen down on the road, do not ignore it; help him lift it up.

Preserving Natural Distinctions

⁵ ‘A woman is not to wear male clothing, and a man is not to put on a woman’s garment, for everyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord your God.

⁶ ‘If you come across a bird’s nest with chicks or eggs, either in a tree or on the ground along the road, and the mother is sitting on the chicks or eggs, do not take the mother along with the young. ⁷ You may take the young for yourself, but be sure to let the mother go free, so that you may prosper and live long. ⁸ If you build a new house, make a railing round your roof, so that you don’t bring bloodguilt on your house if someone falls from it. ⁹ Do not plant your vineyard with two types of seed; otherwise, the entire harvest, both the crop you plant and the produce of the vineyard, will be defiled. ¹⁰ Do not plough with an ox and a donkey together. ¹¹ Do not wear clothes made of both wool and linen.^{(B) 12} Make tassels on the four corners of the outer garment you wear.^(C)

Violations of Proper Sexual Conduct

¹³ ‘If a man marries a woman, has sexual relations with her, and comes to hate her, ¹⁴ and accuses her of shameful conduct, and gives her a bad name, saying, “I married this woman and was intimate with her, but I didn’t find any evidence of her virginity,” ¹⁵ the young woman’s father and mother will take the evidence of her virginity and bring it to the city elders at the city gate.^{(D) 16} The young woman’s father will say to the elders, “I gave my daughter to this man as a wife, but he hates her. ¹⁷ He has accused her of shameful conduct, saying, ‘I didn’t find any evidence of your daughter’s virginity,’ but here is the evidence of my daughter’s virginity.” They will spread out the cloth before the city elders. ¹⁸ Then the elders of that city will take the man and punish him.^{(E) 19} They will also fine him a hundred silver shekels and give them to the young woman’s father, because that man gave an Israelite virgin a bad name. She will remain his wife; he cannot divorce her as long as he lives. ²⁰ But if this accusation is true and no evidence of the young woman’s virginity is found, ²¹ they will bring the woman to the door of her father’s house, and the men of her city will stone her to death. For she has committed an outrage in Israel by being promiscuous while living in her father’s house. You must purge the evil from you.

²² ‘If a man is discovered having sexual relations with another man’s wife, both the man who had sex with the woman and the woman must die. You must purge the evil from Israel. ²³ If there is a young woman who is a virgin engaged to a man, and another man encounters her in the city and sleeps with her, ²⁴ take the two of them out to the gate of that city and stone them to death – the young woman because she did not cry out in the city and the man because he has violated his neighbour’s fiancée. You must purge the evil from you. ²⁵ But if the man encounters an engaged woman in the open country, and he seizes and rapes her, only the man who raped her must die. ²⁶ Do nothing to the young woman, because she is not guilty of an offence deserving death. This case is just like one in which a man attacks his neighbour and murders him. ²⁷ When he found her in the field, the engaged woman cried out, but there was no one to rescue her. ²⁸ If a man encounters a young woman, a virgin who is not engaged, takes hold of her and rapes her, and they are discovered, ²⁹ the man who raped her is to give the young woman’s father fifty silver shekels, and she will become his wife because he violated her.^(F) He cannot divorce her as long as he lives.

³⁰ ‘A man is not to marry his father’s wife; he must not violate his father’s marriage bed.^[a](G)