Deuteronomy 22–23

Chapter 22

Sundry Laws

¹“^aYou shall not see your ¹countryman’s ox or his sheep straying away, and ²pay no attention to them; you shall certainly bring them back to your countryman.

²“If your countryman is not near you, or if you do not know him, then you shall bring it home to your house, and it shall remain with you until your countryman looks for it; then you shall restore it to him.

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

⁴“You shall not see your countryman’s donkey or his ox fallen down on the way, and ¹pay no attention to 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 the Lord 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, or ¹all the produce of the seed which you have sown and the increase of the vineyard will 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 linen together.

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

Laws on Morality

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

¹⁴and charges her with shameful deeds and ¹publicly defames her, 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“The girl’s father shall say to the elders, ‘I gave my daughter to this man for 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 a hundred shekels of silver and give it to the girl’s father, because he ¹publicly defamed a virgin of Israel. And she shall remain his wife; he cannot ²divorce her all his days.

²⁰“But if this ^1acharge is true, that the girl was not found a virgin,

²¹then they shall bring out the girl to the doorway of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her ¹to death because she has ^acommitted an act of folly in Israel by playing the harlot in her father’s house; thus ^byou shall purge the evil from among you.

²²“^aIf a man is found lying with a married woman, then both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman, and the woman; thus you shall purge the evil from Israel.

²³“^aIf there is a girl who is a virgin engaged to a man, and another man finds her in the city and lies with her,

²⁴then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city and you shall stone them ¹to death; the girl, because she did not cry out in the city, and the man, because he has violated his neighbor’s wife. Thus you shall purge the evil from among you.

²⁵“But if in the field the man finds the girl who is engaged, and the man forces her and lies with her, then only the man who lies with her shall die.

²⁶“But you shall do nothing to the girl; there is no sin in the girl worthy of death, for just as a man rises against his neighbor and murders him, so is this case.

²⁷“When he found her in the field, the engaged girl cried out, but there was no one to save her.

²⁸“^aIf a man finds a girl who is a virgin, who is not engaged, and seizes her and lies with her and they are discovered,

²⁹then the man who lay with her shall give to the girl’s father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall become his wife because he has violated her; he cannot divorce her all his days.

³⁰“^1aA man shall not take his father’s wife so that he will not uncover his father’s skirt.

Chapter 23

Persons Excluded from the Assembly

¹“^aNo one who is ¹emasculated or has his male organ cut off shall enter the assembly of the Lord.

²“No one of illegitimate birth shall enter the assembly of the Lord; none of his descendants, even to the tenth generation, shall enter the assembly of the Lord.

³“^aNo Ammonite or Moabite shall enter the assembly of the Lord; none of their descendants, even to the tenth generation, shall ever enter the assembly of the Lord,

^4abecause they did not meet you with ¹food and water on the way when you came out of Egypt, and because they hired against you ^bBalaam the son of Beor from Pethor of ²Mesopotamia, to curse you.

⁵“Nevertheless, the Lord your God was not willing to listen to Balaam, but the Lord your God ^aturned the curse into a blessing for you because the Lord your God ^bloves you.

⁶“^aYou shall never seek their peace or their prosperity all your days.

⁷“You shall not detest an Edomite, for ^ahe is your brother; you shall not detest an Egyptian, ^bbecause you were an alien in his land.

⁸“The sons of the third generation who are born to them may enter the assembly of the Lord.

⁹“When you go out as ¹an army against your enemies, you shall keep yourself from every evil thing.

¹⁰“^aIf there is among you any man who is unclean because of a nocturnal emission, then he must go outside the camp; he may not ¹reenter the camp.

¹¹“But it shall be when evening approaches, he shall bathe himself with water, and at sundown he may ¹reenter the camp.

¹²“You shall also have a place outside the camp and go out there,

¹³and you shall have a ¹spade among your tools, and it shall be when you sit down outside, you shall dig with it and shall turn ²to cover up your excrement.

¹⁴“Since ^athe Lord your God walks in the midst of your camp to deliver you and to ¹defeat your enemies before you, therefore your camp must be ^bholy; and He must not see ²anything indecent among you ³or He will turn away from you.

¹⁵“^aYou shall not hand over to his master a slave who has ¹escaped from his master to you.

¹⁶“He shall live with you in your midst, in the place which he shall choose in one of your ¹towns where it pleases him; ^ayou shall not mistreat him.

¹⁷“^aNone of the daughters of Israel shall be a cult prostitute, ^bnor shall any of the sons of Israel be a cult prostitute.

¹⁸“You shall not bring the hire of a harlot or the wages of a ^1adog into the house of the Lord your God for any votive offering, for both of these are an abomination to the Lord your God.

¹⁹“^aYou shall not charge interest to your ¹countrymen: interest on money, food, or anything that may be loaned at interest.

²⁰“^aYou may charge interest to a foreigner, but to your ¹countrymen you shall not charge interest, so that ^bthe Lord your God may bless you in all ²that you undertake in the land which you are about to enter to ³possess.

²¹“^aWhen you make a vow to the Lord your God, you shall not delay to pay it, for it would be sin in you, ¹and the Lord your God will surely require it of you.

²²“However, if you refrain from vowing, it would not be sin in you.

²³“You shall be careful to perform what goes out from your lips, just as you have voluntarily vowed to the Lord your God, what you have ¹promised.

²⁴“When you enter your neighbor’s vineyard, then you may eat grapes ¹until you are fully satisfied, but you shall not put any in your ²basket.

²⁵“^aWhen you enter your neighbor’s standing grain, then you may pluck the heads with your hand, but you shall not wield a sickle in your neighbor’s standing grain.