Deuteronomy 20-22

1When you go out to war against your enemies and see horses, chariots, and an army larger than yours, do not be afraid of them; for the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, is with you.

2When you are about to go into battle, the priest is to come forward and address the army,

3saying to them, “Hear, O Israel, today you are going into battle with your enemies. Do not be fainthearted or afraid; do not be alarmed or terrified because of them.

4For the LORD your God goes with you to fight for you against your enemies, to give you the victory.”

5Furthermore, the officers are to address the army, saying, “Has any man built a new house and not dedicated it? Let him return home, or he may die in battle and another man dedicate it.

6Has any man planted a vineyard and not begun to enjoy its fruit? Let him return home, or he may die in battle and another man enjoy its fruit.

7Has any man become pledged to a woman and not married her? Let him return home, or he may die in battle and another man marry her.”

8Then the officers shall speak further to the army, saying, “Is any man afraid or fainthearted? Let him return home, so that the hearts of his brothers will not melt like his own.”

9When the officers have finished addressing the army, they are to appoint commanders to lead it.

10When you approach a city to fight against it, you are to make an offer of peace.

11If they accept your offer of peace and open their gates, all the people there will become forced laborers to serve you.

12But if they refuse to make peace with you and wage war against you, lay siege to that city.

13When the LORD your God has delivered it into your hand, you must put every male to the sword.

14But the women, children, livestock, and whatever else is in the city—all its spoil—you may take as plunder, and you shall use the spoil of your enemies that the LORD your God gives you.

15This is how you are to treat all the cities that are far away from you and do not belong to the nations nearby.

16However, in the cities of the nations that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, you must not leave alive anything that breathes.

17For you must devote them to complete destruction —the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites—as the LORD your God has commanded you,

18so that they cannot teach you to do all the detestable things they do for their gods, and so cause you to sin against the LORD your God.

19When you lay siege to a city for an extended time while fighting against it to capture it, you must not destroy its trees by putting an axe to them, because you can eat their fruit. You must not cut them down. Are the trees of the field human, that you should besiege them?

20But you may destroy the trees that you know do not produce fruit. Use them to build siege works against the city that is waging war against you, until it falls.

1If one is found slain, lying in a field in the land that the LORD your God is giving you to possess, and it is not known who killed him,

2your elders and judges must come out and measure the distance from the victim to the neighboring cities.

3Then the elders of the city nearest the victim shall take a heifer that has never been yoked or used for work,

4bring the heifer to a valley with running water that has not been plowed or sown, and break its neck there by the stream.

5And the priests, the sons of Levi, shall come forward, for the LORD your God has chosen them to serve Him and pronounce blessings in His name and to give a ruling in every dispute and case of assault.

6Then all the elders of the city nearest the victim shall wash their hands by the stream over the heifer whose neck has been broken,

7and they shall declare, “Our hands did not shed this blood, nor did our eyes see it.

8Accept this atonement, O LORD, for Your people Israel whom You have redeemed, and do not hold the shedding of innocent blood against them.” And the bloodshed will be atoned for.

9So you shall purge from among you the guilt of shedding innocent blood, since you have done what is right in the eyes of the LORD.

10When you go to war against your enemies and the LORD your God delivers them into your hand and you take them captive,

11if you see a beautiful woman among them, and you desire her and want to take her as your wife,

12then you shall bring her into your house. She must shave her head, trim her nails,

13and put aside the clothing of her captivity. After she has lived in your house a full month and mourned her father and mother, you may have relations with her and be her husband, and she shall be your wife.

14And if you are not pleased with her, you are to let her go wherever she wishes. But you must not sell her for money or treat her as a slave, since you have dishonored her.

15If a man has two wives, one beloved and the other unloved, and both bear him sons, but the unloved wife has the firstborn son,

16when that man assigns his inheritance to his sons he must not appoint the son of the beloved wife as the firstborn over the son of the unloved wife.

17Instead, he must acknowledge the firstborn, the son of his unloved wife, by giving him a double portion of all that he has. For that son is the firstfruits of his father’s strength; the right of the firstborn belongs to him.

18If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and does not listen to them when disciplined,

19his father and mother are to lay hold of him and bring him to the elders of his city, to the gate of his hometown,

20and say to the elders, “This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious; he does not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.”

21Then all the men of his city will stone him to death. So you must purge the evil from among you, and all Israel will hear and be afraid.

22If a man has committed a sin worthy of death, and he is executed, and you hang his body on a tree,

23you must not leave the body on the tree overnight, but you must be sure to bury him that day, because anyone who is hung on a tree is under God’s curse. You must not defile the land that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance.

1If you see your brother’s ox or sheep straying, you must not ignore it; be sure to return it to your brother.

2If your brother does not live near you, or if you do not know who he is, you are to take the animal home to remain with you until your brother comes seeking it; then you can return it to him.

3And you shall do the same for his donkey, his cloak, or anything your brother has lost and you have found. You must not ignore it.

4If you see your brother’s donkey or ox fallen on the road, you must not ignore it; you must help him lift it up.

5A woman must not wear men’s clothing, and a man must not wear women’s clothing, for whoever does these things is detestable to the LORD your God.

6If you come across a bird’s nest with chicks or eggs, either in a tree or on the ground along the road, and the mother is sitting on the chicks or eggs, you must not take the mother along with the young.

7You may take the young, but be sure to let the mother go, so that it may be well with you and that you may prolong your days.

8If you build a new house, you are to construct a railing around your roof, so that you do not bring bloodguilt on your house if someone falls from it.

9Do not plant your vineyard with two types of seed; if you do, the entire harvest will be defiled —both the crop you plant and the fruit of your vineyard.

10Do not plow with an ox and a donkey yoked together.

11Do not wear clothes of wool and linen woven together.

12You are to make tassels on the four corners of the cloak you wear.

13Suppose a man marries a woman, has relations with her, and comes to hate her,

14and he then accuses her of shameful conduct and gives her a bad name, saying, “I married this woman and had relations with her, but I discovered she was not a virgin.”

15Then the young woman’s father and mother shall bring the proof of her virginity to the city elders at the gate

16and say to the elders, “I gave my daughter in marriage to this man, but he has come to hate her.

17And now he has accused her of shameful conduct, saying, ‘I discovered that your daughter was not a virgin.’ But here is the proof of her virginity.” And they shall spread out the cloth before the city elders.

18Then the elders of that city shall take the man and punish him.

19They are also to fine him a hundred shekels of silver and give them to the young woman’s father, because this man has given a virgin of Israel a bad name. And she shall remain his wife; he must not divorce her as long as he lives.

20If, however, this accusation is true, and no proof of the young woman’s virginity can be found,

21she shall be brought to the door of her father’s house, and there the men of her city will stone her to death. For she has committed an outrage in Israel by being promiscuous in her father’s house. So you must purge the evil from among you.

22If a man is found lying with another man’s wife, both the man who slept with her and the woman must die. You must purge the evil from Israel.

23If there is a virgin pledged in marriage to a man, and another man encounters her in the city and sleeps with her,

24you must take both of them out to the gate of that city and stone them to death—the young woman because she did not cry out in the city, and the man because he has violated his neighbor’s wife. So you must purge the evil from among you.

25But if the man encounters a betrothed woman in the open country, and he overpowers her and lies with her, only the man who has done this must die.

26Do nothing to the young woman, because she has committed no sin worthy of death. This case is just like one in which a man attacks his neighbor and murders him.

27When he found her in the field, the betrothed woman cried out, but there was no one to save her.

28If a man encounters a virgin who is not pledged in marriage, and he seizes her and lies with her, and they are discovered,

29then the man who lay with her must pay the young woman’s father fifty shekels of silver, and she must become his wife because he has violated her. He must not divorce her as long as he lives.

30A man is not to marry his father’s wife, so that he will not dishonor his father’s marriage bed.