Beginning

Atonement for Unsolved Murders

21 If someone is found slain in the land which the Lord your God is giving you to possess, lying in the field, and it is not known who has slain him, ² then your elders and your judges are to come forth, and they must measure how far it is to the cities which are around him who was slain. ³ And it must be, that the city which is closest to the slain man, that is, the elders of that city shall take a heifer which has not been worked, that has never pulled in yoke, ⁴ and the elders of that city must bring down the heifer to a valley with flowing water, which is neither plowed nor sown, and shall break the heifer’s neck there in the valley. ⁵ Then the priests, the sons of Levi, must come near, for the Lord your God has chosen them to minister to Him, and to bless in the name of the Lord, and by their word every controversy and every assault will be settled. ⁶ And all the elders of that city, which is nearest to the slain man, shall wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the valley. ⁷ Then they must answer and say, “Our hands have not shed this blood, and our eyes have not seen it. ⁸ Be merciful, O Lord, to Your people Israel, whom You have redeemed, and lay not innocent blood in the midst of Your people Israel.” And the blood guilt will be forgiven them. ⁹ In this way you are to remove the guilt of innocent blood from among you when you do that which is right in the eyes of the Lord.

Marrying Female Captives

¹⁰ When you go forth to war against your enemies, and the Lord your God has delivered them into your hands, and you have taken them captive, ¹¹ and you see among the captives a beautiful woman, and have a desire for her to have her as your wife, ¹² then you are to bring her home to your house, and she is to shave her head and trim her nails. ¹³ She must also discard the clothing of her captivity and shall remain in your house, and mourn her father and her mother for a full month. After that you may have relations with her, and be her husband, and she will be your wife. ¹⁴ It will be, if you are not pleased with her, then you must let her go wherever she pleases, but you may not sell her at all for money, nor are you to make merchandise of her, because you have humbled her.

The Right of the Firstborn

¹⁵ If a man has two wives, one beloved and another unloved, and both have borne him children, both the loved one and the unloved one, and if the firstborn son is hers that is unloved, ¹⁶ then it must be, when he gives his sons the inheritance which he has, that he may not make the firstborn son of the loved come before the son of the unloved, who was indeed the firstborn. ¹⁷ On the contrary, he must acknowledge the son of the unloved for the firstborn, by giving him a double portion of all that he has, for he is the beginning of his strength. The right of the firstborn is his.

Dealing With a Rebellious Son

¹⁸ If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son, who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and who, when they have disciplined him, will not listen to them, ¹⁹ then his father and his mother are to lay hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city, to the gate of his city. ²⁰ They shall say to the elders of his city, “This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not listen to us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.” ²¹ Then all the men of his city must stone him with stones, until he dies. In this way you are to remove the evil from among you, and all Israel shall hear and fear.

Various Laws

²² If a man has committed a sin worthy of death and is executed, and you hang him on a tree, ²³ then his body must not remain all night on the tree, but you must bury him that day (for he that is hanged is accursed of God) so that your land may not be defiled, which the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance.

22 You must not see your brother’s ox or his sheep go astray and hide yourself from them. You must certainly bring them back to your brother. ² If your brother is not near you or if you do not know him, then you are to bring it to your own house, and it will be with you until your brother seeks after it. Then you must return it to him. ³ In the same way, you must do so with his donkey, with his clothing, and with anything lost by your brother which he has lost and you have found. You must not hide yourself from him.

⁴ You are not to see your brother’s donkey or his ox fall down by the way and hide yourself from them. You certainly must help him to lift them up.

⁵ A woman must not wear man’s clothing, nor is a man to put on a woman’s clothing. For all that do so are abominations to the Lord your God.

⁶ If you happen to notice a bird’s nest along the way, in any tree or on the ground, whether they be young ones or eggs, and the mother is sitting on the young or on the eggs, you are not to take the mother from the young. ⁷ You must certainly let the mother go, but you may take the young for yourself, so that it may be well with you, and that you may prolong your days.

⁸ When you build a new house, you must make a guard rail for your roof so that you bring no blood guilt on your house, should anyone fall from there.

⁹ You must not sow your vineyard with two kinds of seeds, or the fruit of your seed which you have sown and the fruit of your vineyard will be defiled.

¹⁰ You must not plow with an ox and a donkey together.

¹¹ You must not wear clothing made of a material of wool and linen together.

¹² You must make tassels on the four quarters of your clothing with which you cover yourself.

Laws About Marriage

¹³ If any man takes a wife and has sexual relations with her and then rejects her, ¹⁴ and accuses her of impropriety and publicly defames her, saying, “I married this woman, but when I had sexual relations with her, I found her not to be a virgin,” ¹⁵ then the father and mother of the girl must produce evidence of the girl’s virginity to the elders of the city at the gate. ¹⁶ The girl’s father must say to the elders, “I gave my daughter to this man to wife, and he has rejected her. ¹⁷ What is more, he has accused her of impropriety, saying, ‘I did not find your daughter to be a virgin.’ However, this is the evidence of my daughter’s virginity.” And they shall spread the cloth before the elders of the city. ¹⁸ The elders of that city must take that man and punish him, ¹⁹ and they must fine him a hundred shekels^[a] of silver and give them to the father of the girl, because he has publicly humiliated a virgin of Israel. Then she is to remain his wife. He may not divorce her all his days.

²⁰ But if the accusation is true, and the evidence of virginity does not exist for the girl, ²¹ then they shall bring the girl out to the door of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her with stones until she dies, because she has brought disgrace into Israel, to act like a whore in her father’s house. In this way you may purge the evil from among you.

²² If a man is discovered lying with a married woman, then both of them must die, both the man that lay with the woman, and the woman. In this way you may purge the evil from Israel.

²³ If a girl who is a virgin is engaged to a man, and another man finds her in the city and has sexual relations with her, ²⁴ then you must bring them both out to the gate of that city and you must stone them with stones until they die, the girl because she did not cry out even though in the city, and the man because he has violated his neighbor’s wife. In this way you may purge the evil from among you.

²⁵ But if a man finds an engaged girl in the field, and the man forces her and rapes her, then only the man that raped her shall die. ²⁶ However, you are to do nothing to the girl. There is no sin worthy of death in the girl, for just as when a man rises against his neighbor and murders him, so is this matter. ²⁷ For he found her in the field, the engaged 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 engaged and seizes her and lies with her and they are discovered, ²⁹ then the man who lay with her must give fifty shekels^[b] of silver to the girl’s father, and she shall be his wife because he has violated her. He may not divorce her all his days.

³⁰ A man must not marry his father’s wife and in this way dishonor his father.

Exclusion From the Assembly

23 No one who is emasculated or has his male organ cut off may enter the assembly of the Lord.

² No one of illegitimate birth may enter the assembly of the Lord. Even to his tenth generation no one related to him may enter the assembly of the Lord.

³ No Ammonite or Moabite may enter the assembly of the Lord. Even to their tenth generation they may not enter the assembly of the Lord forever, ⁴ because they refused you bread and water on the way, when you came from out of Egypt and because they hired Balaam, the son of Beor of Pethor of Mesopotamia, against you to curse you. ⁵ Nevertheless, the Lord your God would not listen to Balaam. Instead the Lord your God turned the curse into a blessing on you because the Lord your God loves you. ⁶ You are not ever to seek their peace nor their prosperity all your days.

⁷ You are not to abhor an Edomite, for he is your brother. You shall not abhor an Egyptian, because you were a foreigner in his land. ⁸ The children who are born of them may enter the assembly of the Lord in their third generation.

Uncleanness in the Camp

⁹ When the army goes out against your enemies, then keep yourself from every wicked thing. ¹⁰ If there be among you any man who is not clean because of a nocturnal emission, then he must leave the camp. He may not re-enter the camp. ¹¹ And it must be that when evening comes, he must wash himself with water, and at sunset he may re-enter the camp.

¹² You must also have a place outside the camp where one may go outside. ¹³ You must have a spade among your equipment, and it must be, when you relieve yourself outside, you must dig there and turn and cover up your excrement. ¹⁴ For the Lord your God walks in the midst of your camp, to deliver you, and to defeat your enemies before you. Therefore, your camp must be holy, so that He does not see any indecent thing among you, and turn away from you.

Various Laws

¹⁵ You must not deliver back to his master a slave who has escaped from his master to you. ¹⁶ He is to dwell with you, even among you, in a place which he shall choose in one of your towns, where he prefers. You must not oppress him.

¹⁷ There must never be a cult prostitute among the daughters of Israel nor a cult prostitute among the sons of Israel. ¹⁸ You must never bring the wage of a prostitute or the wage of a dog into the house of the Lord your God for any vow, for both of these are abominations to the Lord your God.

¹⁹ You must not charge interest on a loan to your brother: interest on money, interest on food, or on anything that may be lent with interest. ²⁰ You may charge interest to a foreigner, but to your brother you may not lend with interest so that the Lord your God may bless you in all to which you set your hand in the land which you are entering to possess.

²¹ When you make a vow to the Lord your God, you must not be slow to pay it, for the Lord your God will surely require it of you, and it would be a sin to you. ²² But if you refrain from making a vow, it will not be a sin to you. ²³ That which goes out of your lips you must keep and do, even a freewill offering, just as you have vowed to the Lord your God, what you have promised with your mouth.

²⁴ When you go into your neighbor’s vineyard, you may eat grapes to your fill at your own pleasure, but you may not put any in your basket. ²⁵ When you enter into the standing grain of your neighbor, you may pluck the ears with your hand, but you may not use a sickle on your neighbor’s standing grain.