Deuteronomy 20-22

Deuteronomy 20

¹When you go out to war against other nations, and come face to face with horses and war-carriages and armies greater in number than yourselves, have no fear of them: for the Lord your God is with you, who took you up out of the land of Egypt.

²And when you are on the point of attacking, let the priest come forward and say to the people,

³Give ear, O Israel: today you are going forward to the fight; let your heart be strong; do not let uncontrolled fear overcome you because of those who are against you;

⁴For the Lord your God goes with you, fighting for you to give you salvation from those who are against you.

⁵And let the overseers say to the people, If there is any man who has made for himself a new house and has not gone into it, let him go back to his house, so that in the event of his death in the fight, another may not take his house for himself.

⁶Or if any man has made a vine-garden without taking the first-fruits of it, let him go back to his house, so that in the event of his death in the fight, another may not be the first to make use of the fruit.

⁷Or if any man is newly married and has had no sex relations with his wife, let him go back to his house, so that in the event of his death in the fight, another man may not take her.

⁸And let the overseers go on to say to the people, If there is any man whose heart is feeble with fear, let him go back to his house before he makes the hearts of his countrymen feeble.

⁹Then, after saying these words to the people, let the overseers put captains over the army.

¹⁰When you come to a town, before attacking it, make an offer of peace.

¹¹And if it gives you back an answer of peace, opening its doors to you, then all the people in it may be put to forced work as your servants.

¹²If however it will not make peace with you, but war, then let it be shut in on all sides:

¹³And when the Lord your God has given it into your hands, let every male in it be put to death without mercy.

¹⁴But the women and the children and the cattle and everything in the town and all its wealth, you may take for yourselves: the wealth of your haters, which the Lord your God has given you, will be your food.

¹⁵So you are to do to all the towns far away, which are not the towns of these nations.

¹⁶But in the towns of these peoples whose land the Lord your God is giving you for your heritage, let no living thing be kept from death:

¹⁷Give them up to the curse; the Hittite, the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite, as the Lord your God has given you orders:

¹⁸So that you may not take them as your example and do all the disgusting things which they do in the worship of their gods, so sinning against the Lord your God.

¹⁹If in war a town is shut in by your armies for a long time, do not let its trees be cut down and made waste; for their fruit will be your food; are the trees of the countryside men for you to take up arms against them?

²⁰Only those trees which you are certain are not used for food may be cut down and put to destruction: and you are to make walls of attack against the town till it is taken.

Deuteronomy 21

¹If, in the land which the Lord your God is giving you, you come across the dead body of a man in the open country, and you have no idea who has put him to death:

²Then your responsible men and your judges are to come out, and give orders for the distance from the dead body to the towns round about it to be measured;

³And whichever town is nearest to the body, the responsible men of that town are to take from the herd a young cow which has never been used for work or put under the yoke;

⁴And they are to take the cow into a valley where there is flowing water, and which is not ploughed or planted, and there the neck of the cow is to be broken:

⁵Then the priests, the sons of Levi, are to come near; for they have been marked out by the Lord your God to be his servants and to give blessings in the name of the Lord; and by their decision every argument and every blow is to be judged:

⁶And all the responsible men of that town which is nearest to the dead man, washing their hands over the cow whose neck was broken in the valley,

⁷Will say, This death is not the work of our hands and our eyes have not seen it.

⁸Have mercy, O Lord, on your people Israel whom you have made free, and take away from your people the crime of a death without cause. Then they will no longer be responsible for the man's death.

⁹So you will take away the crime of a death without cause from among you, when you do what is right in the eyes of the Lord.

¹⁰When you go out to war against other nations, and the Lord your God gives them up into your hands and you take them as prisoners;

¹¹If among the prisoners you see a beautiful woman and it is your desire to make her your wife;

¹²Then take her back to your house; and let her hair and her nails be cut;

¹³And let her take off the dress in which she was made prisoner and go on living in your house and weeping for her father and mother for a full month: and after that you may go in to her and be her husband and she will be your wife.

¹⁴But if you have no delight in her, you are to let her go wherever she will; you may not take a price for her as if she was your property, for you have made use of her for your pleasure.

¹⁵If a man has two wives, one greatly loved and the other hated, and the two of them have had children by him; and if the first son is the child of the hated wife:

¹⁶Then when he gives his property to his sons for their heritage, he is not to put the son of his loved one in the place of the first son, the son of the hated wife:

¹⁷But he is to give his first son his birthright, and twice as great a part of his property: for he is the first-fruits of his strength and the right of the first son is his.

¹⁸If a man has a son who is hard-hearted and uncontrolled, who gives no attention to the voice of his father and mother, and will not be ruled by them, though they give him punishment:

¹⁹Then let his father and mother take him to the responsible men of the town, to the public place;

²⁰And say to them, This son of ours is hard-hearted and uncontrolled, he will not give attention to us; he gives himself up to pleasure and strong drink.

²¹Then he is to be stoned to death by all the men of the town: so you are to put away the evil from among you; and all Israel, hearing of it, will be full of fear.

²²If a man does a crime for which the punishment is death, and he is put to death by hanging him on a tree;

²³Do not let his body be on the tree all night, but put it to rest in the earth the same day; for the man who undergoes hanging is cursed by God; so do not make unclean the land which the Lord your God is giving you for your heritage.

Deuteronomy 22

¹If you see your brother's ox or his sheep wandering, do not go by without helping, but take them back to your brother.

²If their owner is not near, or if you are not certain who he is, then take the beast to your house and keep it till its owner comes in search of it, and then you are to give it back to him.

³Do the same with his ass or his robe or anything which has gone from your brother's keeping and which you have come across: do not keep it to yourself.

⁴If you see your brother's ox or his ass falling down on the road, do not go by without giving him help in lifting it up again.

⁵It is not right for a woman to be dressed in man's clothing, or for a man to put on a woman's robe: whoever does such things is disgusting to the Lord your God.

⁶If by chance you see a place which a bird has made for itself in a tree or on the earth, with young ones or eggs, and the mother bird seated on the young ones or on the eggs, do not take the mother bird with the young:

⁷See that you let the mother bird go, but the young ones you may take; so it will be well for you and your life will be long.

⁸If you are building a house, make a railing for the roof, so that the blood of any man falling from it will not come on your house.

⁹Do not have your vine-garden planted with two sorts of seed: or all of it may become a loss, the seed you have put in as well as the increase.

¹⁰Do not do your ploughing with an ox and an ass yoked together.

¹¹Do not have clothing made of two sorts of thread, wool and linen together.

¹²On the four edges of your robe, with which your body is covered, put ornaments of twisted threads.

¹³If any man takes a wife, and having had connection with her, has no delight in her,

¹⁴And says evil things about her and gives her a bad name, saying, I took this woman, and when I had connection with her it was clear to me that she was not a virgin:

¹⁵Then let the girl's father and mother put before the responsible men of the town, in the public place, signs that the girl was a virgin:

¹⁶And let the girl's father say to the responsible men, I gave my daughter to this man for his wife, but he has no love for her;

¹⁷And now he has put shame on her, saying that she is not a virgin; but here is the sign that she is a virgin. Then they are to put her clothing before the responsible men of the town.

¹⁸Then the responsible men of the town are to give the man his punishment;

¹⁹They will take from him a hundred shekels of silver, which are to be given to the father of the girl, because he has given an evil name to a virgin of Israel: she will go on being his wife, he may never put her away all his life.

²⁰But if what he has said is true, and she is seen to be not a virgin,

²¹Then they are to make the girl come to the door of her father's house and she will be stoned to death by the men of the town, because she has done evil and put shame on Israel, by acting as a loose woman in her father's house: so you are to put away evil from among you.

²²If a man is taken in the act of going in to a married woman, the two of them, the man as well as the woman, are to be put to death: so you are to put away the evil from Israel.

²³If a young virgin has given her word to be married to a man, and another man meeting her in the town, has connection with her;

²⁴Then you are to take the two of them to the doorway of the town, and have them stoned to death; the young virgin, because she gave no cry for help, though it was in the town, and the man, because he has put shame on his neighbour's wife: so you are to put away evil from among you.

²⁵But if the man, meeting such a virgin in the open country, takes her by force, then only the man is to be put to death;

²⁶Nothing is to be done to the virgin, because there is no cause of death in her: it is the same as if a man made an attack on his neighbour and put him to death:

²⁷For he came across her in the open country, and there was no one to come to the help of the virgin in answer to her cry.

²⁸If a man sees a young virgin, who has not given her word to be married to anyone, and he takes her by force and has connection with her, and discovery is made of it;

²⁹Then the man will have to give the virgin's father fifty shekels of silver and make her his wife, because he has put shame on her; he may never put her away all his life.

³⁰A man may not take his father's wife or have sex relations with a woman who is his father's.