Deuteronomy 24-27

Amplified Bible, Classic Edition

24 When a man takes a wife and marries her, if then she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, and he writes her a bill of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house,

² And when she departs out of his house she goes and marries another man,

³ And if the latter husband dislikes her and writes her a bill of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, or if the latter husband dies, who took her as his wife,

⁴ Then her former husband, who sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife after she is defiled. For that is an abomination before the Lord; and you shall not bring guilt upon the land which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance.

⁵ When a man is newly married, he shall not go out with the army or be charged with any business; he shall be free at home one year and shall cheer his wife whom he has taken.

⁶ No man shall take a mill or an upper millstone in pledge, for he would be taking a life in pledge.

⁷ If a man is found kidnapping any of his brethren of the Israelites and treats him as a slave or a servant or sells him, then that thief shall die. So you shall put evil from among you.

⁸ Take heed in the plague of leprosy, that you watch diligently and do according to all that the Levitical priests shall teach you. As I commanded them, so you shall be watchful and do.^(A)

⁹ Remember [earnestly] what the Lord your God did to Miriam on the way after you had come out of Egypt.^(B)

¹⁰ When you lend your brother anything, you shall not go into his house to get his pledge.

¹¹ You shall stand outside and the man to whom you lend shall bring the pledge out to you.

¹² And if the man is poor, you shall not keep his pledge overnight.

¹³ You shall surely restore to him the pledge at sunset, that he may sleep in his garment and bless you; and it shall be credited to you as righteousness (rightness and justice) before the Lord your God.

¹⁴ You shall not oppress or extort from a hired servant who is poor and needy, whether he is of your brethren or of your strangers and sojourners who are in your land inside your towns.

¹⁵ You shall give him his hire on the day he earns it before the sun goes down, for he is poor, and sets his heart upon it; lest he cry against you to the Lord, and it be sin to you.

¹⁶ The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers; only for his own sin shall anyone be put to death.

¹⁷ You shall not pervert the justice due the stranger or the sojourner or the fatherless, or take a widow’s garment in pledge.

¹⁸ But you shall [earnestly] remember that you were a slave in Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you from there; therefore I command you to do this.

¹⁹ When you reap your harvest in your field and have forgotten a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to get it; it shall be for the stranger and the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow, that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands.

²⁰ When you beat your olive tree, do not go over the boughs again; the leavings shall be for the stranger and the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow.

²¹ When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, you shall not glean it afterward; it shall be for the stranger and the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow.

²² You shall [earnestly] remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt; therefore I command you to do this.

25 If there is a controversy between men, and they come into court and the judges decide between them, justifying the innocent and condemning the guilty,

² Then if the guilty man deserves to be beaten, the judge shall cause him to lie down and be beaten in his presence with a certain number of stripes according to his offense.

³ Forty stripes may be given him but not more, lest, if he should be beaten with many stripes, your brother should [be treated like a beast and] seem low and worthless to you.

⁴ You shall not muzzle the ox when he treads out the grain.^(C)

⁵ If brothers live together and one of them dies and has no son, his wife shall not be married outside the family to a stranger [an excluded man]. Her husband’s brother shall go in to her and take her as his wife and perform the duty of a husband’s brother to her.

⁶ And the firstborn son shall succeed to the name of the dead brother, that his name may not be blotted out of Israel.

⁷ And if the man does not want to take his brother’s wife, then let his brother’s wife go up to the gate to the elders, and say, My husband’s brother refuses to continue his brother’s name in Israel; he will not perform the duty of my husband’s brother.

⁸ Then the elders of his city shall call him and speak to him. And if he stands firm and says, I do not want to take her,

⁹ Then shall his brother’s wife come to him in the presence of the elders and pull his shoe off his foot and spit in his face and shall answer, So shall it be done to that man who does not build up his brother’s house.

¹⁰ And his family shall be called in Israel, The House of Him Whose Shoe Was Loosed.

¹¹ When men strive together one with another and the wife of the one draws near to rescue her husband out of the hand of him who is beating him, and puts out her hand and seizes the other man by the private parts,

¹² Then you shall cut off her hand; your eyes shall not pity her.

¹³ You shall not have in your bag true and false weights, a large and a small.

¹⁴ You shall not have in your house true and false measures, a large and a small.

¹⁵ But you shall have a perfect and just weight and a perfect and just measure, that your days may be prolonged in the land which the Lord your God gives you.

¹⁶ For all who do such things, all who do unrighteously, are an abomination to the Lord your God.

¹⁷ Remember what Amalek did to you on the way when you had come forth from Egypt,

¹⁸ How he did not fear God, but when you were faint and weary he attacked you along the way and cut off all the stragglers at your rear.^(D)

¹⁹ Therefore when the Lord your God has given you rest from all your enemies round about in the land which the Lord your God gives you to possess as an inheritance, you shall blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under the heavens; you must not forget.

26 When you have come into the land which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance and possess it and live in it,

² You shall take some of the first of all the produce of the soil which you harvest from the land the Lord your God gives you and put it in a basket, and go to the place [the sanctuary] which the Lord your God has chosen as the abiding place for His Name [and His Presence].

³ And you shall go to the priest who is in office in those days, and say to him, I give thanks this day to the Lord your God that I have come to the land which the Lord swore to our fathers to give us.

⁴ And the priest shall take the basket from your hand and set it down before the altar of the Lord your God.

⁵ And you shall say before the Lord your God, A wandering and lost Aramean ready to perish was my father [Jacob], and he went down into Egypt and sojourned there, few in number, and he became there a nation, great, mighty, and numerous.

⁶ And the Egyptians treated us very badly and afflicted us and laid upon us hard bondage.

⁷ And when we cried to the Lord, the God of our fathers, the Lord heard our voice and looked on our affliction and our labor and our [cruel] oppression;

⁸ And the Lord brought us forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm, and with great (awesome) power and with signs and with wonders;

⁹ And He brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.

¹⁰ And now, behold, I bring the firstfruits of the ground which You, O Lord, have given me. And you shall set it down before the Lord your God and worship before the Lord your God;

¹¹ And you and the Levite and the stranger and the sojourner among you shall rejoice in all the good which the Lord your God has given you and your household.

¹² When you have finished paying all the tithe of your produce the third year, which is the year of tithing, and have given it to the Levite, the stranger and the sojourner, the fatherless, and to the widow, that they may eat within your towns and be filled,

¹³ Then you shall say before the Lord your God, I have brought the hallowed things (the tithe) out of my house and moreover have given them to the Levite, to the stranger and the sojourner, to the fatherless, and to the widow, according to all Your commandments which You have commanded me; I have not transgressed any of Your commandments, neither have I forgotten them.

¹⁴ I have not eaten of the tithe in my mourning [making the tithe unclean], nor have I handled any of it when I was unclean, nor given any of it to the dead. I have hearkened to the voice of the Lord my God; I have done according to all that You have commanded me.

¹⁵ Look down from Your holy habitation, from heaven, and bless Your people Israel and the land which You have given us as You swore to our fathers, a land flowing with milk and honey.

¹⁶ This day the Lord your God has commanded you to do these statutes and ordinances. Therefore you shall keep and do them with all your [mind and] heart and with all your being.

¹⁷ You have [openly] declared the Lord this day to be your God, [pledging] to walk in His ways, to keep His statutes and His commandments and His precepts, and to hearken to His voice.

¹⁸ And the Lord has declared this day that you are His peculiar people as He promised you, and you are to keep all His commandments;

¹⁹ And He will make you high above all nations which He has made, in praise and in fame and in honor, and that you shall be a holy people to the Lord your God, as He has spoken.

27 And Moses with the elders of Israel commanded the people, Keep all the commandments with which I charge you today.

² And on the day when you pass over the Jordan to the land which the Lord your God gives you, you shall set up great stones and cover them with plaster.

³ And you shall write on them all the words of this law when you have passed over, that you may go into the land which the Lord your God is giving you, a land flowing with milk and honey, as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has promised you.

⁴ And when you have gone over the Jordan, you shall set up these stones, as I command you this day, on Mount Ebal, and coat them with plaster.

⁵ And there you shall build an altar to the Lord your God, an altar of stones; you shall not lift up any iron tool upon them.

⁶ You shall build the altar of the Lord your God of whole stones and offer burnt offerings on it to Him;

⁷ And you shall offer peace offerings, and eat there and rejoice before the Lord your God.

⁸ And you shall write upon the stones all the words of this law very plainly.

⁹ And Moses and the Levitical priests said to all Israel, Keep silence and hear, O Israel! This day you have become the people of the Lord your God.

¹⁰ So you shall obey the voice of the Lord your God and do His commandments and statutes which I command you today.

¹¹ And Moses charged the people the same day, saying,

¹² These [tribes] shall stand on Mount Gerizim to bless the people, when you have passed over the Jordan: Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph’s [sons], and Benjamin.

¹³ And these [tribes] shall stand on Mount Ebal to pronounce the curse [for disobedience]: Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zebulun, Dan, and Naphtali.

¹⁴ And the Levites shall declare with a loud voice to all the men of Israel:

¹⁵ Cursed is the man who makes a graven or molten image, an abomination to the Lord, the work of the hands of the craftsman, and sets it up in secret. All the people shall answer, Amen.

¹⁶ Cursed is he who dishonors his father or his mother. All the people shall say, Amen.

¹⁷ Cursed is he who moves [back] his neighbor’s landmark. All the people shall say, Amen.

¹⁸ Cursed is he who misleads a blind man on his way. All the people shall say, Amen.

¹⁹ Cursed is he who perverts the justice due to the sojourner or the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow. All the people shall say, Amen.

²⁰ Cursed is he who lies with his father’s wife, because he uncovers what belongs to his father. All the people shall say, Amen.

²¹ Cursed is he who lies with any beast. All the people shall say, Amen.

²² Cursed is he who lies with his half sister, whether his father’s or his mother’s daughter. All the people shall say, Amen.

²³ Cursed is he who lies with his mother-in-law. All the people shall say, Amen.

²⁴ Cursed is he who slays his neighbor secretly. All the people shall say, Amen.

²⁵ Cursed is he who takes a bribe to slay an innocent person. All the people shall say, Amen.

²⁶ Cursed is he who does not support and give assent to the words of this law to do them [as the rule of his life]. All the people shall say, Amen.