Deuteronomy 21

New American Standard Bible 1995

Expiation of a Crime

21 “If a slain person is found lying in the open country in the land which the Lord your God gives you to ^[a]possess, and it is not known who has struck him, ² then your elders and your judges shall go out and measure the distance to the cities which are around the slain one. ³ It shall be that the city which is nearest to the slain man, that is, the elders of that city, shall take a heifer of the herd, which has not been worked and which has not pulled in a yoke; ⁴ and the elders of that city shall bring the heifer down to a valley with running water, which has not been plowed or sown, and shall break the heifer’s neck there in the valley. ⁵ Then ^(A)the priests, the sons of Levi, shall come near, for the Lord your God has chosen them to serve Him and to bless in the name of the Lord; and every dispute and every ^[b]assault ^[c]shall be settled by them. ⁶ All the elders of that city ^[d]which is nearest to the slain man shall ^(B)wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the valley; ⁷ and they shall answer and say, ‘Our hands did not shed this blood, nor did our eyes see it. ^8 [e]Forgive Your people Israel whom You have redeemed, O Lord, and do not place the guilt of ^(C)innocent blood in the midst of Your people Israel.’ And the bloodguiltiness shall be ^[f]forgiven them. ^9 (D)So you shall remove the guilt of innocent blood from your midst, when you do what is right in the eyes of the Lord.

Domestic Relations

¹⁰ “When you go out to battle against your enemies, and ^(E)the Lord your God delivers them into your hands and you take them away captive, ¹¹ and see among the captives a beautiful woman, and have a desire for her and would take her as a wife for yourself, ¹² then you shall bring her home to your house, and she shall ^(F)shave her head and ^[g]trim her nails. ¹³ She shall also ^[h]remove the clothes of her captivity and shall remain in your house, and ^(G)mourn her father and mother a full month; and after that you may go in to her and be her husband and she shall be your wife. ¹⁴ It shall be, if you are not pleased with her, then you shall let her go ^[i]wherever she wishes; but you shall certainly not sell her for money, you shall not ^[j]mistreat her, because you have ^(H)humbled her.

¹⁵ “If a man has two wives, the one loved and ^(I)the other ^[k]unloved, and both the loved and the ^[l]unloved have borne him sons, if the firstborn son belongs to the ^[m]unloved, ¹⁶ then it shall be in the day he ^[n]wills what he has to his sons, he cannot make the son of the loved the firstborn before the son of the ^[o]unloved, who is the firstborn. ¹⁷ But he shall acknowledge the firstborn, the son of the ^[p]unloved, by giving him a double portion of all that ^[q]he has, for he is the ^(J)beginning of his strength; ^(K)to him belongs the right of the firstborn.

¹⁸ “If any man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will ^(L)not obey his father or his mother, and when they chastise him, he will not even listen to them, ¹⁹ then his father and mother shall seize him, and bring him out to the elders of his city ^[r]at the gateway of his hometown. ²⁰ They shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey us, he is a glutton and a drunkard.’ ^21 (M)Then all the men of his city shall stone him to death; so ^(N)you shall remove the evil from your midst, and ^(O)all Israel will hear of it and fear.

²² “If a man has committed a sin ^(P)worthy of death and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, ^23 (Q)his corpse shall not hang all night on the tree, but you shall surely bury him on the same day (for ^(R)he who is hanged is ^[s]accursed of God), so that you ^(S)do not defile your land which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance.