Deuteronomy 20–22

CHAPTER 20

Statutes About Warfare

¹“If you go out to battle against your enemies and see ^ahorses and chariots and people more numerous than you, ^bdo not be afraid of them; for Yahweh your God, who brought you up from the land of Egypt, is with you.

²“Now it will be, when you are drawing near to the battle, the priest shall approach and speak to the people.

³“And he shall say to them, ‘Hear, O Israel, you are drawing near to the battle against your enemies today. Do not let your heart be faint. ^aDo not be afraid, nor be alarmed, nor be in dread before them,

⁴for Yahweh your God ^ais the one who goes with you, to fight for you against your enemies, to save you.’

⁵“The officers also shall speak to the people, saying, ‘Who is the man that has built a new house and has not ^adedicated it? Let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man dedicate it.

⁶‘Who is the man that has planted a vineyard and has not ¹begun to use its fruit? Let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man ²begin to use its fruit.

⁷‘^aAnd who is the man that is engaged to a woman and has not ¹married her? Let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man ²marry her.’

⁸“Then the officers shall speak further to the people and say, ‘^aWho is the man that is afraid and whose heart is faint? Let him go and return to his house, so that ¹he might not make his brothers’ hearts melt like his heart.’

⁹“Now it will be that when the officers have finished speaking to the people, they shall appoint commanders of armies at the head of the people.

¹⁰“If you come near a city to fight against it, you shall call for terms of peace.

¹¹“Now it will be that if it ¹agrees to make peace with you and opens to you, then all the people who are found in it shall become your ^aforced labor and shall serve you.

¹²“However, if it does not make peace with you, but makes war against you, then you shall besiege it.

¹³“And Yahweh your God shall give it into your hand, ^aand you shall strike all the males in it with the edge of the sword.

¹⁴“Only the women and the little ones and ^athe animals and all that is in the city, all its spoil, you shall plunder for yourself; and you shall consume the spoil of your enemies which Yahweh your God has given you.

¹⁵“Thus you shall do to all the cities that are very far from you, which are not of the cities of these nations ¹nearby.

¹⁶“^aOnly in the cities of these peoples that Yahweh your God is giving you as an inheritance, you shall not leave alive anything that breathes.

¹⁷“But you shall devote them to destruction, the Hittite and the Amorite, the Canaanite and the Perizzite, the Hivite and the Jebusite, as Yahweh your God has commanded you,

¹⁸so that they may not teach you to do ^aaccording to all their abominations which they have done for their gods, so that you would ^bsin against Yahweh your God.

¹⁹“If you besiege a city for many days, to make war against it in order to capture it, you shall not destroy its trees by swinging an axe against them; for you may eat from them, and you shall not cut them down. ¹For is the tree of the field a man, that it should ²be besieged by you?

²⁰“Only the trees which you know are not trees for food you shall destroy and cut down, that you may build siegeworks against the city that is making war with you until it falls.

CHAPTER 21

Atonement for Innocent Blood

¹“If a slain person is found fallen in the open country in the land which Yahweh your God gives you to ¹possess, and it is not known who has struck him,

²then your elders and your judges shall go out and measure the distance to the cities which are around the slain one.

³“And it shall be that the city which is nearest to the slain man, that is, the elders of that city, shall take a heifer of the herd, which has not been worked and which has not pulled in a yoke;

⁴and the elders of that city shall bring the heifer down to a valley with running water, which has not been plowed or sown, and they shall break the heifer’s neck there in the valley.

⁵“Then ^athe priests, the sons of Levi, shall come near, for Yahweh your God has chosen them to minister for Him and to bless in the name of Yahweh; and every dispute and every ¹assault ²shall be settled by them.

⁶“And all the elders of that city ¹who are nearest to the slain man shall ^awash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the valley;

⁷and they shall answer and say, ‘Our hands did not shed this blood, nor did our eyes see it.

⁸‘Atone for Your people Israel whom You have redeemed, O Yahweh, and do not place the guilt of ^ainnocent blood in the midst of Your people Israel.’ And the bloodguiltiness shall be atoned for them.

⁹“^aSo you shall purge the guilt of innocent blood from your midst, when you do what is right in the eyes of Yahweh.

Statutes About Domestic Relations

¹⁰“If you go out to battle against your enemies, and ^aYahweh your God gives them over into your hands and you take them away captive,

¹¹and see among the captives a beautiful woman and set your affection on her and would take her as a wife for yourself,

¹²then you shall bring her home to your house, and she shall ^ashave her head and ¹trim her nails.

¹³“She shall also ¹remove the clothes of her captivity and shall remain in your house and ^aweep for her father and mother a full month; and after that you may go in to her and be her husband, and she shall be your wife.

¹⁴“And it will be that, if you do not desire her, then you shall let her go ¹wherever she wishes; but you shall certainly not sell her for money; you shall not ²mistreat her because you have ^ahumbled her.

¹⁵“If a man has two wives, the one loved and ^athe other ¹unloved, and both the loved and the ²unloved have borne him sons, if the firstborn son belongs to the ³unloved,

¹⁶then it shall be in the day he ¹wills what he has to his sons, he cannot make the son of the loved the firstborn before the son of the ²unloved, who is the firstborn.

¹⁷“But he shall recognize the firstborn, the son of the ¹unloved, by giving him a double portion of all that ²he has, for he is the ^afirst of his vigor; ^bthe legal judgment for the firstborn belongs to him.

¹⁸“If any man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will ^anot obey his father or his mother, and when they discipline him, he will not even listen to them,

¹⁹then his father and mother shall seize him and bring him out to the elders of his city ¹at the gateway of his hometown.

²⁰“Then they shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious; he will not listen to our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.’

²¹“^aThen all the men of his city shall stone him, and he will die; so ^byou shall purge the evil from your midst, and ^call Israel will hear of it and fear.

A Man Hanged on a Tree Is Cursed

²²“And if a man has committed a sin, ^athe judgment of which is death, and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree,

^23ahis corpse shall not hang all night on the tree, but you shall surely bury him on the same day (because ^bcursed of God is he who is hanged), so that you ^cdo not make unclean your land which Yahweh your God gives you as an inheritance.

CHAPTER 22

Various Statutes

¹“^aYou shall not see your brother’s ox or his sheep straying away and ¹ignore them; you shall certainly bring them back to your brother.

²“And if your brother is not near you, or if you do not know him, then you shall bring it home to your house, and it shall be with you until your brother searches for it; then you shall give it back to him.

³“Thus you shall do with his donkey, and you shall do likewise with his garment, and you shall do likewise with anything lost by your brother, which he has lost and you have found. You are not allowed to ¹ignore them.

⁴“You shall not see your brother’s donkey or his ox fallen down on the way and ¹ignore them; you shall certainly help him to raise them up.

⁵“A woman shall not wear man’s clothing, nor shall a man put on a woman’s clothing; for whoever does these things is an abomination to Yahweh your God.

⁶“If you happen to come upon a bird’s nest along the way, in any tree or on the ground, with young ones or eggs, and the mother sitting on the young or on the eggs, ^ayou shall not take the mother with the young;

⁷you shall certainly let the mother go, but the young you may take for yourself, ^ain order that it may be well with you and that you may prolong your days.

⁸“When you build a new house, you shall make a parapet for your roof, so that you will not bring bloodguilt on your house if anyone falls from it.

⁹“^aYou shall not sow your vineyard with two kinds of seed, lest ¹all the produce of the seed which you have sown and the increase of the vineyard become defiled.

¹⁰“^aYou shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together.

¹¹“^aYou shall not wear a material mixed of wool and flax together.

¹²“^aYou shall make yourself tassels on the four corners of your garment with which you cover yourself.

Statutes About Sexual Immorality

¹³“^aIf any man takes a wife and goes in to her and then ¹turns against her,

¹⁴and charges her with shameful deeds and brings forth against her a bad name and says, ‘I took this woman, but when I came near her, I did not find her a virgin,’

¹⁵then the girl’s father and her mother shall take and bring out the evidence of the girl’s virginity to the elders of the city at the gate.

¹⁶“Then the girl’s father shall say to the elders, ‘I gave my daughter to this man as a wife, but he ¹turned against her;

¹⁷and behold, he has charged her with shameful deeds, saying, “I did not find your daughter a virgin.” But ¹this is the evidence of my daughter’s virginity.’ And they shall spread the garment before the elders of the city.

¹⁸“So ^athe elders of that city shall take the man and chastise him,

¹⁹and they shall fine him ¹one hundred shekels of silver and give it to the girl’s father because he brought forth a bad name against a virgin of Israel. And she shall be his wife; he cannot ²divorce her all his days.

²⁰“But if…