Deuteronomy 24–27

Chapter 24

¹When a man taketh a wife, and marrieth her, it shall be if she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some unseemly thing in her, that he shall write her a letter of divorce, and give it into her hand, and send her out of his house. ²And she shall depart out of his house, and go away, and may become another man’s wife. ³And if the latter husband hate her, and write her a letter of divorce, and give it into her hand, and send her out of his house; or if the latter husband die who took her as his wife; ⁴her first husband, who sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after that she is defiled; for it is an abomination before Jehovah; and thou shalt not cause the land to sin, which Jehovah thy God giveth thee for an inheritance.

⁵When a man hath newly taken a wife, he shall not go out with the army, neither shall any kind of business be imposed upon him; he shall be free for his house one year, and shall gladden his wife whom he hath taken. ⁶No man shall take the hand-mill or the upper millstone in pledge; for it would be taking life in pledge. ⁷If a man be found who hath stolen one of his brethren of the children of Israel, and who hath treated him as a slave and sold him, that thief shall die; and thou shalt put evil away from thy midst. ⁸Take heed in the plague of leprosy, that thou take great heed, and do according to all that the priests the Levites shall teach you: as I commanded them shall ye take heed to do. ⁹Remember what Jehovah thy God did unto Miriam on the way, after that ye came forth out of Egypt. ¹⁰When thou dost lend thy brother anything, thou shalt not go into his house to secure his pledge. ¹¹Thou shalt stand outside, and the man to whom thou hast made a loan shall bring out the pledge to thee without. ¹²And if the man be needy, thou shalt not lie down with his pledge; ¹³in any case thou shalt return him the pledge at the going down of the sun, that he may sleep in his own upper garment and bless thee; and it shall be righteousness unto thee before Jehovah thy God.

¹⁴Thou shalt not oppress a hired servant who is poor and needy of thy brethren, or of thy sojourners who are in thy land within thy gates: ¹⁵on his day thou shalt give him his hire, neither shall the sun go down upon it; for he is poor, and his soul yearneth after it; lest he cry against thee to Jehovah, and it be a sin in thee. ¹⁶The fathers shall not be put to death for the sons, neither shall the sons be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin. ¹⁷Thou shalt not pervert the judgment of the stranger, or of the fatherless; and thou shalt not take in pledge a widow’s garment. ¹⁸And thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in Egypt, and that Jehovah thy God redeemed thee from thence; therefore I command thee to do this thing. ¹⁹When thou reapest thy harvest in thy field, and forgettest a sheaf in the field, thou shalt not return to fetch it; it shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless, and for the widow; that Jehovah thy God may bless thee in all the work of thy hands. ²⁰When thou shakest thine olive-tree, thou shalt not go over the boughs again; it shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless, and for the widow. ²¹When thou gatherest the grapes of thy vineyard, thou shalt not glean it afterwards; it shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless, and for the widow. ²²And thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in the land of Egypt; therefore I command thee to do this thing.

Chapter 25

¹If there be a controversy between men, and they resort to judgment, and they judge their case; then they shall justify the righteous, and condemn the wicked. ²And it shall be if the wicked man have deserved to be beaten, that the judge shall cause him to lie down, and be beaten before his face, according to the measure of his wickedness with a certain number of stripes. ³With forty stripes shall they beat him; they shall not exceed, lest, if they continue to beat him with many stripes above these, thy brother become despicable in thine eyes. ⁴Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn.

⁵If brethren dwell together, and one of them die, and have no son, the wife of the dead shall not marry a stranger abroad: her husband’s brother shall go in unto her, and take her to him as wife, and perform the duty of a husband’s brother unto her. ⁶And it shall be, that the firstborn that she beareth shall stand in the name of his brother who is dead, that his name be not blotted out from Israel. ⁷But if the man like not to take his brother’s wife, his brother’s wife shall go up to the gate unto the elders, and say, My husband’s brother refuseth to raise up unto his brother a name in Israel: he will not perform for me the duty of a husband’s brother. ⁸Then the elders of his city shall call him and speak unto him; and if he stand to it and say, I like not to take her; ⁹then shall his brother’s wife come near to him before the eyes of the elders, and draw his sandal from his foot, and spit in his face, and shall answer and say, So shall it be done unto the man that will not build up his brother’s house. ¹⁰And his name shall be called in Israel, The house of him that hath his shoe drawn off. ¹¹When men fight together one with another, and the wife of the one come near to rescue her husband out of the hand of him that smiteth him, and stretch out her hand, and seize him by his secret parts, ¹²thou shalt cut off her hand; thine eye shall not spare.

¹³Thou shalt not have in thy bag divers weights, a great and a small. ¹⁴Thou shalt not have in thy house divers ephahs, a great and a small. ¹⁵A perfect and just weight shalt thou have; a perfect and just ephah shalt thou have; that thy days may be prolonged in the land that Jehovah thy God giveth thee. ¹⁶For every one that doeth such things, every one that doeth unrighteousness, is an abomination to Jehovah thy God. ¹⁷Remember what Amalek did unto thee on the way, when ye came forth out of Egypt; ¹⁸how he met thee on the way, and smote the hindmost of thee, all the feeble that lagged behind thee, when thou wast faint and weary, and he feared not God. ¹⁹And it shall be, when Jehovah thy God shall have given thee rest from all thine enemies round about, in the land that Jehovah thy God giveth thee for an inheritance to possess it, that thou shalt blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under the heavens; thou shalt not forget it.

Chapter 26

¹And it shall be when thou comest into the land that Jehovah thy God giveth thee for an inheritance, and possessest it, and dwellest therein, ²that thou shalt take of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which thou shalt bring of thy land which Jehovah thy God giveth thee, and shalt put it in a basket, and shalt go unto the place that Jehovah thy God will choose to cause his name to dwell there; ³and thou shalt come unto the priest that shall be in those days, and say unto him, I profess this day unto Jehovah thy God, that I am come unto the land that Jehovah swore unto our fathers to give us. ⁴And the priest shall take the basket out of thy hand, and set it down before the altar of Jehovah thy God. ⁵And thou shalt speak and say before Jehovah thy God, A perishing Aramaean was my father, and he went down to Egypt with a few, and sojourned there, and became there a nation, great, mighty, and populous. ⁶And the Egyptians evil-entreated us, and afflicted us, and laid upon us hard bondage; ⁷and we cried to Jehovah, the God of our fathers, and Jehovah heard our voice, and looked on our affliction, and our labour, and our oppression; ⁸and Jehovah brought us forth out of Egypt with a powerful hand, and with a stretched-out arm, and with great terribleness, and with signs, and with wonders; ⁹and he hath brought us into this place, and hath given us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey! ¹⁰And now, behold, I have brought the first of the fruits of the land, which thou, Jehovah, hast given me. And thou shalt set it down before Jehovah thy God, and worship before Jehovah thy God. ¹¹And thou shalt rejoice in all the good that Jehovah thy God hath given to thee, and to thy house, thou, and the Levite, and the stranger that is in thy midst.

¹²When thou hast made an end of tithing all the tithes of thy produce in the third year, the year of tithing, thou shalt give it to the Levite, to the stranger, to the fatherless, and to the widow, that they may eat in thy gates, and be filled; ¹³and thou shalt say before Jehovah thy God, I have brought away the hallowed things out of the house, and also have given them to the Levite, and to the stranger, to the fatherless, and to the widow, according to all thy commandment which thou hast commanded me; I have not transgressed nor forgotten any of thy commandments: ¹⁴I have not eaten thereof in my mourning, neither have I brought away thereof in uncleanness, nor given thereof for a dead person; I have hearkened to the voice of Jehovah my God; I have done according to all that thou hast commanded me. ¹⁵Look down from thy holy habitation, from the heavens, and bless thy people Israel, and the land that thou hast given us as thou didst swear unto our fathers, a land flowing with milk and honey!

¹⁶This day Jehovah thy God hath commanded thee to do these statutes and ordinances; and thou shalt keep and do them with all thy heart and with all thy soul. ¹⁷Thou hast this day accepted Jehovah to be thy God, and to walk in his ways, and keep his statutes, and his commandments, and his ordinances, and to hearken unto his voice; ¹⁸and Jehovah hath accepted thee this day to be a people of possession to him, as he hath told thee, and that thou shouldest keep all his commandments, ¹⁹so that he should make thee high above all the nations which he hath made, in praise and in name and in honour; and that thou shouldest be a holy people to Jehovah thy God, as he hath said.

Chapter 27

¹And Moses and the elders of Israel…