¹³Suppose a man gets married to a woman and makes love to her. But then he doesn’t like her. ¹⁴So he tells lies about her and says she’s a bad woman. He says, “I got married to this woman. But when I made love to her, I discovered she wasn’t a virgin.” ¹⁵Then the woman’s parents must bring proof that she was a virgin. They must give the proof to the elders at the gate of the town.

¹⁶The woman’s father will speak to the elders. He’ll say, “I gave my daughter to this man to be his wife. But he doesn’t like her. ¹⁷So now he has told lies about her. He has said, ‘I discovered that your daughter wasn’t a virgin.’ But here’s the proof that my daughter was a virgin.” Then her parents will show the elders of the town the cloth that has her blood on it.

¹⁸The elders will punish the man. ¹⁹They’ll make him weigh out two and a half pounds of silver. They’ll give it to the woman’s father. That’s because the man has said an Israelite virgin is a bad woman. She will continue to be his wife. He must not divorce her as long as he lives.

²⁰But suppose the charge is true. And there isn’t any proof that the woman was a virgin. ²¹Then she must be brought to the door of her father’s house. There the people of her town will put her to death by throwing stones at her. She has done a very terrible thing in Israel. She has had sex before she got married. Get rid of that evil person.

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