Deuteronomy 23-25

1No man with crushed or severed genitals may enter the assembly of the LORD.

2No one of illegitimate birth may enter the assembly of the LORD, nor may any of his descendants, even to the tenth generation.

3No Ammonite or Moabite or any of their descendants may enter the assembly of the LORD, even to the tenth generation.

4For they did not meet you with food and water on your way out of Egypt, and they hired Balaam son of Beor from Pethor in Aram-naharaim to curse you.

5Yet the LORD your God would not listen to Balaam, and the LORD your God turned the curse into a blessing for you, because the LORD your God loves you.

6You are not to seek peace or prosperity from them as long as you live.

7Do not despise an Edomite, for he is your brother. Do not despise an Egyptian, because you lived as a foreigner in his land.

8The third generation of children born to them may enter the assembly of the LORD.

9When you are encamped against your enemies, then you shall keep yourself from every wicked thing.

10If any man among you becomes unclean because of a nocturnal emission, he must leave the camp and stay outside.

11When evening approaches, he must wash with water, and when the sun sets he may return to the camp.

12You must have a place outside the camp to go and relieve yourself.

13And you must have a digging tool in your equipment so that when you relieve yourself you can dig a hole and cover up your excrement.

14For the LORD your God walks throughout your camp to protect you and deliver your enemies to you. Your camp must be holy, lest He see anything unclean among you and turn away from you.

15Do not return a slave to his master if he has taken refuge with you.

16Let him live among you wherever he chooses, in the town of his pleasing. Do not oppress him.

17No daughter or son of Israel is to be a shrine prostitute.

18You must not bring the wages of a prostitute, whether female or male, into the house of the LORD your God to fulfill any vow, because both are detestable to the LORD your God.

19Do not charge your brother interest on money, food, or any other type of loan.

20You may charge a foreigner interest, but not your brother, so that the LORD your God may bless you in everything to which you put your hand in the land that you are entering to possess.

21If you make a vow to the LORD your God, do not be slow to keep it, because He will surely require it of you, and you will be guilty of sin.

22But if you refrain from making a vow, you will not be guilty of sin.

23Be careful to follow through on what comes from your lips, because you have freely vowed to the LORD your God with your own mouth.

24When you enter your neighbor’s vineyard, you may eat your fill of grapes, but you must not put any in your basket.

25When you enter your neighbor’s grainfield, you may pluck the heads of grain with your hand, but you must not put a sickle to your neighbor’s grain.

1If a man marries a woman, but she becomes displeasing to him because he finds some indecency in her, he may write her a certificate of divorce, hand it to her, and send her away from his house.

2If, after leaving his house, she goes and becomes another man’s wife,

3and the second man hates her, writes her a certificate of divorce, hands it to her, and sends her away from his house, or if he dies,

4then the husband who divorced her first may not remarry her after she has been defiled, for that is an abomination to the LORD. You must not bring sin upon the land that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance.

5If a man is newly married, he must not be sent to war or be pressed into any duty. For one year he is free to stay at home and bring joy to the wife he has married.

6Do not take a pair of millstones or even an upper millstone as security for a debt, because that would be taking one’s livelihood as security.

7If a man is caught kidnapping one of his Israelite brothers, whether he treats him as a slave or sells him, the kidnapper must die. So you must purge the evil from among you.

8In cases of infectious skin diseases, be careful to diligently follow everything the Levitical priests instruct you. Be careful to do as I have commanded them.

9Remember what the LORD your God did to Miriam on the journey after you came out of Egypt.

10When you lend anything to your neighbor, do not enter his house to collect security.

11You are to stand outside while the man to whom you are lending brings the security out to you.

12If he is a poor man, you must not go to sleep with the security in your possession;

13be sure to return it to him by sunset, so that he may sleep in his own cloak and bless you, and this will be credited to you as righteousness before the LORD your God.

14Do not oppress a hired hand who is poor and needy, whether he is a brother or a foreigner residing in one of your towns.

15You are to pay his wages each day before sunset, because he is poor and depends on them. Otherwise he may cry out to the LORD against you, and you will be guilty of sin.

16Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor children for their fathers; each is to die for his own sin.

17Do not deny justice to the foreigner or the fatherless, and do not take a widow’s cloak as security.

18Remember that you were slaves in Egypt, and the LORD your God redeemed you from that place. Therefore I am commanding you to do this.

19If you are harvesting in your field and forget a sheaf there, do not go back to get it. It is to be left for the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow, so that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hands.

20When you beat the olives from your trees, you must not go over the branches again. What remains will be for the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow.

21When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, you must not go over the vines again. What remains will be for the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow.

22Remember that you were slaves in the land of Egypt. Therefore I am commanding you to do this.

1If there is a dispute between men, they are to go to court to be judged, so that the innocent may be acquitted and the guilty condemned.

2If the guilty man deserves to be beaten, the judge shall have him lie down and be flogged in his presence with the number of lashes his crime warrants.

3He may receive no more than forty lashes, lest your brother be beaten any more than that and be degraded in your sight.

4Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain.

5When brothers dwell together and one of them dies without a son, the widow must not marry outside the family. Her husband’s brother is to take her as his wife and fulfill the duty of a brother-in-law for her.

6The first son she bears will carry on the name of the dead brother, so that his name will not be blotted out from Israel.

7But if the man does not want to marry his brother’s widow, she is to go to the elders at the city gate and say, “My husband’s brother refuses to preserve his brother’s name in Israel. He is not willing to perform the duty of a brother-in-law for me.”

8Then the elders of his city shall summon him and speak with him. If he persists and says, “I do not want to marry her,”

9his brother’s widow shall go up to him in the presence of the elders, remove his sandal, spit in his face, and declare, “This is what is done to the man who will not maintain his brother’s line.”

10And his family name in Israel will be called “The House of the Unsandaled.”

11If two men are fighting, and the wife of one comes to rescue her husband from the one striking him, and she reaches out her hand and grabs his genitals,

12you are to cut off her hand. You must show her no pity.

13You shall not have two differing weights in your bag, one heavy and one light.

14You shall not have two differing measures in your house, one large and one small.

15You must maintain accurate and honest weights and measures, so that you may live long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.

16For everyone who behaves dishonestly in regard to these things is detestable to the LORD your God.

17Remember what the Amalekites did to you along your way from Egypt,

18how they met you on your journey when you were tired and weary, and they attacked all your stragglers; they had no fear of God.

19When the LORD your God gives you rest from the enemies around you in the land that He is giving you to possess as an inheritance, you are to blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget!