Deuteronomy 23–26

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.

Chapter 24

Law of Divorce

¹“When a man takes a wife and marries her, and it happens ¹that she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some ^aindecency in her, and ^bhe writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out from his house,

²and she leaves his house and goes and becomes another man’s wife,

³and if the latter husband ¹turns against her and writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, or if the latter husband dies who took her to be his wife,

⁴then her ^aformer husband who sent her away is not allowed to take her again to be his wife, since she has been defiled; for that is an abomination before the Lord, and you shall not bring sin on the land which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance.

⁵“^aWhen a man takes a new wife, he shall not go out with the army nor be charged with any duty; he shall be free at home one year and shall ^bgive happiness to his wife whom he has taken.

Sundry Laws

⁶“No one shall take a handmill or an upper millstone in pledge, for he would be taking a life in pledge.

⁷“^aIf a man is ¹caught kidnapping any of his ²countrymen of the sons of Israel, and he deals with him violently or sells him, then that thief shall die; so you shall purge the evil from among you.

⁸“^aBe careful against ¹an infection of leprosy, that you diligently observe and do according to all that the Levitical priests teach you; as I have commanded them, so you shall be careful to do.

⁹“Remember what the Lord your God did ^ato Miriam on the way as you came out of Egypt.

¹⁰“^aWhen you make your neighbor a loan of any sort, you shall not enter his house to take his pledge.

¹¹“You shall remain outside, and the man to whom you make the loan shall bring the pledge out to you.

¹²“If he is a poor man, you shall not sleep with his pledge.

¹³“^aWhen the sun goes down you shall surely return the pledge to him, that he may sleep in his cloak and bless you; and ^bit will be righteousness for you before the Lord your God.

¹⁴“^aYou shall not oppress a hired servant who is poor and needy, whether he is one of your ¹countrymen or one of your aliens who is in your land in your ²towns.

¹⁵“^aYou shall give him his wages on his day ¹before the sun sets, for he is poor and sets his ²heart on it; so that ^bhe will not cry against you to the Lord and it become sin in you.

¹⁶“^aFathers shall not be put to death ¹for their sons, nor shall sons be put to death for their fathers; everyone shall be put to death for his own sin.

¹⁷“^aYou shall not pervert the justice ¹due an alien or ²an orphan, nor ^btake a widow’s garment in pledge.

¹⁸“But you shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt, and that the Lord your God redeemed you from there; therefore I am commanding you to do this thing.

¹⁹“^aWhen you reap your harvest in your field and have forgotten a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to get it; it shall be ^bfor the alien, for the ¹orphan, and for the widow, in order that the Lord your God ^cmay bless you in all the work of your hands.

²⁰“^aWhen you beat your olive tree, you shall not go over the boughs ¹again; it shall be ^bfor the alien, for the ²orphan, and for the widow.

²¹“When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, you shall not ¹go over it again; it shall be for the alien, for the ²orphan, and for the widow.

²²“You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt; therefore I am commanding you to do this thing.

Chapter 25

Sundry Laws

¹“^aIf there is a dispute between men and they go to ¹court, and ²the judges decide their case, ^band they justify the righteous and condemn the wicked,

²then it shall be if the wicked man ^1adeserves to be beaten, the judge shall then make him lie down and be beaten in his presence with the number of stripes according to his ²guilt.

³“^aHe may beat him forty times but no more, so that he does not beat him with many more stripes than these and your brother is not ^bdegraded in your eyes.

⁴“^aYou shall not muzzle the ox while he is threshing.

⁵“When brothers live together and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of the deceased shall not be married outside the family to a strange man. ^aHer husband’s brother shall go in to her and take her to himself as wife and perform the duty of a husband’s brother to her.

⁶“It shall be that the firstborn whom she bears shall ¹assume the name of his dead brother, so that ^ahis name will not be blotted out from Israel.

⁷“^aBut if the man does not desire to take his brother’s wife, then his brother’s wife shall go up to the gate to the elders and say, ‘My husband’s brother refuses to establish a name for his brother in Israel; he is not willing to perform the duty of a husband’s brother to me.’

⁸“Then the elders of his city shall summon him and speak to him. And if he persists and says, ‘I do not desire to take her,’

^9athen his brother’s wife shall come to him in the sight of the elders, and pull his sandal off his foot and ^bspit in his face; and she shall ¹declare, ‘Thus it is done to the man who does not build up his brother’s house.’

¹⁰“In Israel his name shall be called, ‘The house of him whose sandal is removed.’

¹¹“If two men, a man and his ¹countryman, are struggling together, and the wife of one comes near to deliver her husband from the hand of the one who is striking him, and puts out her hand and seizes his genitals,

¹²then you shall cut off her ¹hand; ^2ayou shall not show pity.

¹³“^aYou shall not have in your bag ¹differing weights, a large and a small.

¹⁴“You shall not have in your house ¹differing measures, a large and a small.

¹⁵“You shall have a full and just weight; you shall have a full and just ¹measure, ^athat your days may be prolonged in the ²land which the Lord your God gives you.

¹⁶“For ^aeveryone who does these things, everyone who acts unjustly is an abomination to the Lord your God.

¹⁷“^aRemember what Amalek did to you along the way when you came out from Egypt,

¹⁸how he met you along the way and attacked among you all the stragglers at your rear when you were faint and weary; and he ^adid not ¹fear God.

¹⁹“Therefore it shall come about when the Lord your God has given you ^arest from all your surrounding enemies, in the land which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance to ¹possess, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven; you must not forget.

Chapter 26

Offering First Fruits

¹“Then it shall be, when you enter the land which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance, and you possess…