Add parallel Print Page Options

10 [a]If a man commits adultery with his neighbor’s wife,(A) both the adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death.

Read full chapter

Footnotes

  1. 20:10–21 See 18:6–23 and notes there. It appears that the inclusion of various penalties in 20:10–21 accounts for the different order of the cases here compared to the order found in 18:6–23. The reason why the offenses in 20:10–21 carry different penalties, however, is not clear. Perhaps the cases in vv. 17–21 were considered slightly less serious, being condemned but not criminally prosecuted.

22 If a man is discovered lying with a woman who is married to another, they both shall die, the man who was lying with the woman as well as the woman.(A) Thus shall you purge the evil from Israel.

23 If there is a young woman, a virgin who is betrothed,[a] and a man comes upon her in the city and lies with her, 24 you shall bring them both out to the gate of the city and there stone them to death: the young woman because she did not cry out though she was in the city, and the man because he violated his neighbor’s wife. Thus shall you purge the evil from your midst. 25 But if it is in the open fields that a man comes upon the betrothed young woman, seizes her and lies with her, only the man who lay with her shall die. 26 You shall do nothing to the young woman, since the young woman is not guilty of a capital offense. As when a man rises up against his neighbor and murders him, so in this case:[b](B) 27 it was in the open fields that he came upon her, and though the betrothed young woman may have cried out, there was no one to save her.

28 (C)If a man comes upon a young woman, a virgin who is not betrothed, seizes her and lies with her, and they are discovered, 29 the man who lay with her shall give the young woman’s father fifty silver shekels and she will be his wife, because he has violated her. He may not divorce her as long as he lives.

Read full chapter

Footnotes

  1. 22:23 A young woman, a virgin who is betrothed: a girl who is married but not yet brought to her husband’s home and whose marriage is therefore still unconsummated.
  2. 22:26 So in this case: in the absence of witnesses (“in the open field”), the presumption must be that the woman is the victim, and so guiltless.