Deuteronomy — Chapter 21

If, in the land that the ETERNAL your God is assigning you to possess, someone slain is found lying in the open, the identity of the slayer not being known,

your elders and magistrates shall go out and measure the distances from the corpse to the nearby towns.

The elders of the town nearest to the corpse shall then take a heifer that has never been worked, which has never pulled in a yoke;

and the elders of that town shall bring the heifer down to an everflowing wadi, which is not tilled or sown. There, in the wadi, they shall break the heifer’s neck.

The priests, sons of Levi, shall come forward; for the ETERNAL your God has chosen them for divine service and to pronounce blessing in the name of GOD, and every lawsuit and case of assaultaassault Cf. 17.8. Or “skin affection”; cf. 24.8. is subject to their ruling.

Then all the elders of the town nearest to the corpse shall wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the wadi.

And they shall make this declaration: “Our hands did not shed this blood, nor did our eyes see it done.

Absolve, O ETERNAL One, Your people Israel whom You redeemed, and do not let guilt for the blood of the innocent remain among Your people Israel.” And they will be absolved of bloodguilt.

Thus you will remove from your midst guilt for the blood of the innocent, for you will be doing what is right in GOD’s sight.

When youbyou See note at 20.1. take the field against your enemies, and the ETERNAL your God delivers them into your power and you take some of them captive,

and you see among the captives a beautiful woman and you desire her and would take her to wife;

and you bring her into your household, and she trims her hair, pares her nails,

and discards her captive’s garb; and she spends a month’s time in your household lamenting her father and mother: after that you may come to her and thus become her husband, and she shall be your wife.

Then, should you no longer want her, you must release her outright. You must not sell her for money: since you had your will of her, you must not enslave her.

If a man has two wives, one loved and the other unloved, and both the loved and the unloved have borne him sons, but the first-born is the son of the unloved one—

when he wills his property to his sons, he may not treat as first-born the son of the loved one in disregard of the son of the unloved one who is older.

Instead, he must accept the first-born, the son of the unloved one, and allot to him a double portioncdouble portion Lit. two-thirds. of all he possesses; since he is the first fruit of his vigor, the birthright is his due.

If a man has a wayward and defiant son, who does not heed his father or mother and does not obey them even after they discipline him,

his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his town at the public place of his community.

They shall say to the elders of his town, “This son of ours is disloyal and defiant; he does not heed us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.”

Thereupon the people of his towndthe people of his town Cf. 1 Kings 21.11. shall stone him to death. Thus you will sweep out evil from your midst: all Israel will hear and be afraid.

If someone is guilty of a capital offense and is put to death, and you impale the body on a stake,

you must not let the corpse remain on the stake overnight, but must bury it the same day. For an impaled body is an affront to God: you shall not defile the land that the ETERNAL your God is giving you to possess.