Chapter 21

Expiation of a Crime

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

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

3 “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;

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

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

6 “All the elders of that city 1which is nearest to the slain man shall awash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the valley;

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

8 ‘1Forgive Your people Israel whom You have redeemed, O Lord, and do not place the guilt of ainnocent blood in the midst of Your people Israel.’ And the bloodguiltiness shall be 2forgiven them.

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

Domestic Relations

10 “When you go out to battle against your enemies, and athe Lord your God delivers them into your hands and you take them away captive,

11 and see among the captives a beautiful woman, and have a desire for her and would take her as a wife for yourself,

12 then 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 amourn 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 “It shall be, if you are not pleased with 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 1unloved have borne him sons, if the firstborn son belongs to the 1unloved,

16 then 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 acknowledge the firstborn, the son of the 1unloved, by giving him a double portion of all that 2he has, for he is the abeginning of his strength; bto him belongs the right of the firstborn.

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

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

20 “They shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey us, he is a glutton and a drunkard.’

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

22 “If a man has committed a sin aworthy of death and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree,

23 ahis corpse shall not hang all night on the tree, but you shall surely bury him on the same day (for bhe who is hanged is 1accursed of God), so that you cdo not defile your land which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance.