Persons Excluded from the Assembly

23 (A)No one who is [a]emasculated or has his male organ cut off may enter the assembly of the Lord. No one of illegitimate birth may enter the assembly of the Lord; none of his descendants, even to the tenth generation, may enter the assembly of the Lord. (B)No Ammonite or Moabite may enter the assembly of the Lord; none of their descendants, even to the tenth generation, may ever enter the assembly of the Lord, (C)because they did not meet you with [b]food and water on the way when you came out of Egypt, and because they hired against you (D)Balaam the son of Beor from Pethor of [c]Mesopotamia, to curse you. Nevertheless, the Lord your God was unwilling to listen to Balaam, but the Lord your God (E)turned the curse into a blessing for you because the Lord your God (F)loves you. (G)You shall never seek their peace or their prosperity all your days.

“You shall not loathe an [d]Edomite, for (H)he is your brother; you shall not loathe an Egyptian, (I)because you were a stranger in his land. The sons of the third generation who are born to them may enter the assembly of the Lord.

“When you go out as [e]an army against your enemies, you shall be on guard against every evil thing.

10 (J)If there is among you any man who is unclean because of a nocturnal emission, then he must go outside the camp; he may not [f]reenter the camp. 11 But when evening approaches, he shall bathe himself with water, and at sundown he may [g]reenter the camp.

12 “You shall also have a place allocated outside the camp, so that you may go out there to relieve yourself, 13 and you shall have a [h]spade among your tools, and it shall be when you sit down outside, you shall dig with it and shall turn and cover up your excrement. 14 Since (K)the Lord your God walks in the midst of your camp to save you and to [i]defeat your enemies before you, your camp must be (L)holy; so He must not see [j]anything indecent among you [k]or He will turn away from you.

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Footnotes

  1. Deuteronomy 23:1 Lit wounded by crushing of testicles
  2. Deuteronomy 23:4 Lit bread
  3. Deuteronomy 23:4 Heb Aram-naharaim
  4. Deuteronomy 23:7 I.e., a descendant of Esau
  5. Deuteronomy 23:9 Or a camp
  6. Deuteronomy 23:10 Lit come to the midst of
  7. Deuteronomy 23:11 Lit come to the midst of
  8. Deuteronomy 23:13 Lit peg
  9. Deuteronomy 23:14 Lit give
  10. Deuteronomy 23:14 Lit nakedness of anything
  11. Deuteronomy 23:14 Lit and

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