Deut 21
1
If one be found slain in the land which YHWH your God gives you to possess it, lying
in the field, and it be not known who has smitten him;
2
then your elders and your judges shall come forth, and they shall measure to the cities
which are round about him whom is slain:
3
and it shall be, that the city which is nearest to the slain man, even the elders
of that city shall take a heifer of the herd, which has not been wrought with, and
which has not drawn in the yoke;
4
and the elders of that city shall bring down the heifer to a valley with running water,
which is neither plowed nor sown, and shall break the heifer`s neck there in the valley.
5
And the priests the sons of Levi shall come near; for them YHWH your God has chosen
to minister to him, and to bless in the name of YHWH; and according to their word
shall every controversy and every stroke be.
6
And all the elders of that city, who are nearest to the slain man, shall wash their
hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the valley;
7
and they shall answer and say, Our hands have not shed this blood, neither have our
eyes seen it.
8
Forgive, O YHWH, your people Israel, whom you have redeemed, and suffer not innocent
blood [to remain] in the midst of your people Israel. And the blood shall be forgiven
them.
9
So shall you put away the innocent blood from the midst of you, when you shall do
that which is right in the eyes of YHWH.
10
When you go forth to battle against your enemies, and YHWH your God delivers them
into your hands, and you carry them away captive,
11
and see among the captives a beautiful woman, and you have a desire to her, and would
take her to you to wife;
12
then you shall bring her home to your house; and she shall shave her head, and pare
her nails;
13
and she shall put the raiment of her captivity from off her, and shall remain in your
house, and bewail her father and her mother a full month: and after that you shall
go in to her, and be her husband, and she shall be your wife.
14
And it shall be, if you have no delight in her, then you shall let her go where she
will; but you shall not sell her at all for money, you shall not deal with her as
a slave, because you have humbled her.
15
If a man have two wives, the one beloved, and the other hated, and they have borne
him children, both the beloved and the hated; and if the first-born son be hers that
was hated;
16
then it shall be, in the day that he causes his sons to inherit that which he has,
that he may not make the son of the beloved the first-born before the son of the hated,
who is the first-born:
17
but he shall acknowledge the first-born, the son of the hated, by giving him a double
portion of all that he has; for he is the beginning of his strength; the right of
the first-born is his.
18
If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, that will not obey the voice of his father,
or the voice of his mother, and, though they chasten him, will not hearken to them;
19
then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out to the elders
of his city, and to the gate of his place;
20
and they shall say to the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious,
he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard.
21
And all the men of his city shall stone him to death with stones: so shall you put
away the evil from the midst of you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear.
22
And if a man have committed a sin worthy of death, and he be put to death, and you
hang him on a tree;
23
his body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but you shall surely bury him the
same day; for he who is hanged is accursed of God; that you defile not your land which
YHWH your God gives you for an inheritance.