Old Testament · Law

Deuteronomy chapter 21

If someone is found dead in the open country, in the land your God is giving you to possess, lying in a field, and no one knows who killed them,then your and must go out and measure the distance from the body to the surrounding towns.The elders of the town closest to the body must take a that has never been worked—one that has never worn a —and they must bring the cow down to a with a flowing stream, one that has never been plowed or planted. There, in that valley, they must .Then the priests, the , must step forward—because Yahweh your God chose them to serve him and to pronounce decisions in Yahweh’s name—and their word settles every dispute and every case of physical harm.All the elders of the town closest to the body must over the cow whose neck was broken in the valley,and they must declare: “Our hands did not , and our eyes did not see it happen.Accept this for your people Israel whom you , Yahweh. Don’t hold this innocent blood against your people Israel.” And the will be resolved for them.This is how you will the guilt of innocent blood from among you, because you will be doing what is right in Yahweh’s eyes.When you go to war against your enemies and Yahweh your God hands them over to you, and you take captives,and you notice among the captives a beautiful woman and are attracted to her, and you want to take her as your wife,bring her into your home. She must , trim her nails,and take off the clothes she was captured in. She must live in your house and her father and mother for a full month. After that, you may sleep with her and be her husband, and she will be your wife.But if you lose interest in her, you must let her go wherever she wants. You absolutely cannot sell her for money or , because you have already .If a man has two wives, one he loves and one he doesn’t, and both have given him sons, but the son belongs to the wife he doesn’t love—when the day comes for him to pass on his property to his sons, he must not give the firstborn’s share to the son of the wife he loves instead of the actual firstborn, the son of the wife he doesn’t love.He must acknowledge the son of the unloved wife as the firstborn by giving him a of everything he owns. That son was the —the right of the firstborn belongs to him.If a man has a , son who won’t listen to his father or mother, and even after they discipline him he still won’t listen to them,then his father and mother must grab him and bring him to the elders at the .They must say to the elders of his town, “This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He won’t listen to us. He’s a and a .”Then all the men of his town must . You must purge this from among you. All Israel will hear about it and be afraid.If someone is guilty of an offense deserving death and is executed, and you ,you must not leave the body hanging on the tree overnight. You must bury it that same day, because a body left hanging is . Don’t the land that Yahweh your God is giving you as an .