Deuteronomy 20-22

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

Rules of Warfare

20 “When you go out to war against your enemies and see horses and chariots, an army larger than your own, do not fear them, for the Lord your God is with you, who brought you up from the land of Egypt.^{(A) 2} Before you engage in battle, the priest shall come forward and speak to the troops ³ and shall say to them, ‘Hear, O Israel! Today you are drawing near to do battle against your enemies. Do not lose heart or be afraid or panic or be in dread of them,^{(B) 4} for it is the Lord your God who goes with you, to fight for you against your enemies, to give you victory.’^{(C) 5} Then the officers shall address the troops, saying, ‘Has anyone built a new house but not dedicated it? He should go back to his house, lest he die in the battle and another dedicate it. ⁶ Has anyone planted a vineyard but not yet enjoyed its fruit? He should go back to his house, lest he die in the battle and another be first to enjoy its fruit.^{(D) 7} Has anyone become engaged to a woman but not yet married her? He should go back to his house, lest he die in the battle and another marry her.’^{(E) 8} The officers shall continue to address the troops, saying, ‘Is anyone afraid or disheartened? He should go back to his house, or he might cause the heart of his comrades to melt like his own.’^{(F) 9} When the officers have finished addressing the troops, then the commanders shall take charge of them.

¹⁰ “When you draw near to a town to fight against it, offer it terms of peace.^{(G) 11} If it accepts your terms of peace and surrenders to you, then all the people in it shall serve you at forced labor. ¹² But if it does not accept your terms of peace and makes war against you, then you shall besiege it, ¹³ and when the Lord your God gives it into your hand, you shall put all its males to the sword. ¹⁴ You may, however, take as your plunder the women, the children, livestock, and everything else in the town, all its spoil. You may enjoy the spoil of your enemies, which the Lord your God has given you.^{(H) 15} Thus you shall treat all the towns that are very far from you, which are not towns of these nations here. ¹⁶ But as for the towns of these peoples that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, you must not let anything that breathes remain alive.^{(I) 17} Indeed, you shall annihilate them—the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites—just as the Lord your God has commanded, ¹⁸ so that they may not teach you to do all the abhorrent things that they do for their gods and you thus sin against the Lord your God.^(J)

¹⁹ “If you besiege a town for a long time, making war against it in order to take it, you must not destroy its trees by wielding an ax against them. Although you may take food from them, you must not cut them down. Are trees in the field human beings that they should come under siege from you? ²⁰ You may destroy only the trees that you know do not produce food; you may cut them down for use in building siegeworks against the town that makes war with you, until it falls.

Law concerning Murder by Persons Unknown

21 “If, in the land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess, a body is found lying in open country, and it is not known who struck the person down,^{(K) 2} then your elders and your judges shall come out to measure the distances to the towns that are near the body. ³ The elders of the town nearest the body shall take a heifer that has never been worked, one that has not pulled in the yoke; ⁴ the elders of that town shall bring the heifer down to a wadi with running water, which is neither plowed nor sown, and shall break the heifer’s neck there in the wadi. ⁵ Then the priests, the sons of Levi, shall come forward, for the Lord your God has chosen them to minister to him and to pronounce blessings in the name of the Lord, and by their decision all cases of dispute and assault shall be settled.^{(L) 6} All the elders of that town nearest the body shall wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the wadi, ⁷ and they shall declare, ‘Our hands did not shed this blood, nor were we witnesses to it. ⁸ Absolve, O Lord, your people Israel, whom you redeemed; do not let the guilt of innocent blood remain in the midst of your people Israel.’ Then they will be absolved of bloodguilt.^{(M) 9} So you shall purge the guilt of innocent blood from your midst, because you must do what is right in the sight of the Lord.^(N)

Female Captives

¹⁰ “When you go out to war against your enemies and the Lord your God hands them over to you and you take them captive, ¹¹ suppose you see among the captives a beautiful woman whom you desire and want to marry, ¹² and so you bring her home to your house: she shall shave her head, pare her nails,^{(O) 13} discard her captive’s garb, and remain in your house a full month mourning for her father and mother; after that you may go in to her and be her husband, and she shall be your wife. ¹⁴ But if you are not satisfied with her, you shall let her go free and certainly not sell her for money. You must not treat her as a slave, since you have dishonored her.

The Right of the Firstborn

¹⁵ “If a man has two wives, one of them loved and the other disliked, and if both the loved and the disliked have borne him sons, the firstborn being the son of the one who is disliked, ¹⁶ then on the day when he wills his possessions to his sons, he is not permitted to treat the son of the loved as the firstborn in preference to the son of the disliked, who is the firstborn.^{(P) 17} He must acknowledge as firstborn the son of the one who is disliked, giving him a double portion^[a] of all that he has; since he is the first issue of his virility, the right of the firstborn is his.^(Q)

Rebellious Children

¹⁸ “If someone has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey his father and mother, who does not heed them when they discipline him,^{(R) 19} then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his town at the gate of that place. ²⁰ They shall say to the elders of his town, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.’ ²¹ Then all the men of the town shall stone him to death. So you shall purge the evil from your midst, and all Israel will hear and be afraid.^(S)

Miscellaneous Laws

²² “When someone is convicted of a crime punishable by death and is executed and you hang him on a tree, ²³ his corpse must not remain all night upon the tree; you must bury him that same day, for anyone hung on a tree is under God’s curse. You must not defile the land that the Lord your God is giving you for possession.^(T)

22 “You shall not watch your neighbor’s ox or sheep straying away and ignore them; you shall take them back to their owner.^{(U) 2} If the owner does not reside near you or you do not know who the owner is, you shall bring it to your own house, and it shall remain with you until the owner claims it; then you shall return it. ³ You shall do the same with a neighbor’s donkey; you shall do the same with a neighbor’s garment; and you shall do the same with anything else that your neighbor loses and you find. You may not withhold your help.

⁴ “You shall not see your neighbor’s donkey or ox fallen on the road and ignore it; you shall help to lift it up.^(V)

⁵ “A woman shall not wear a man’s apparel, nor shall a man put on a woman’s garment, for whoever does such things is abhorrent to the Lord your God.

⁶ “If you come on a bird’s nest, in any tree or on the ground, with fledglings or eggs, with the mother sitting on the fledglings or on the eggs, you shall not take the mother with the young.^{(W) 7} Let the mother go, taking only the young for yourself, in order that it may go well with you and you may live long.^(X)

⁸ “When you build a new house, you shall make a parapet for your roof; otherwise you might have bloodguilt on your house, if anyone should fall from it.

⁹ “You shall not sow your vineyard with two kinds of seed, or the whole yield will be forbidden, both the crop that you have sown and the yield of the vineyard itself.^(Y)

¹⁰ “You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey yoked together.

¹¹ “You shall not wear clothes made of wool and linen woven together.^(Z)

¹² “You shall make tassels on the four corners of the cloak with which you cover yourself.^(AA)

Laws concerning Sexual Relations

¹³ “Suppose a man marries a woman but after going in to her dislikes her^{(AB) 14} and makes up charges against her, slandering her by saying, ‘I married this woman, but when I lay with her, I did not find evidence of her virginity.’ ¹⁵ The father of the young woman and her mother shall then submit the evidence of the young woman’s virginity to the elders of the city at the gate.^{(AC) 16} The father of the young woman shall say to the elders: ‘I gave my daughter in marriage to this man, but he dislikes her, ¹⁷ and now he has made up charges against her, saying, “I did not find evidence of your daughter’s virginity.” But here is the evidence of my daughter’s virginity.’ Then they shall spread out the cloth before the elders of the town. ¹⁸ The elders of that town shall take the man and punish him; ¹⁹ they shall fine him one hundred shekels of silver (which they shall give to the young woman’s father) because he has slandered a virgin of Israel. She shall remain his wife; he shall not be permitted to divorce her as long as he lives.

²⁰ “If, however, this charge is true, that evidence of the young woman’s virginity was not found, ²¹ then they shall bring the young woman out to the entrance of her father’s house, and the men of her town shall stone her to death, because she committed a disgraceful act in Israel by prostituting herself in her father’s house. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.^(AD)

²² “If a man is discovered lying with the wife of another man, both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman as well as the woman. So you shall purge the evil from Israel.^(AE)

²³ “If there is a young woman, a virgin already engaged to be married, and a man meets her in the town and lies with her, ²⁴ you shall bring both of them to the gate of that town and stone them to death, the young woman because she did not cry for help in the town and the man because he violated his neighbor’s wife. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.^(AF)

²⁵ “But if the man meets the engaged woman in the open country and the man seizes her and lies with her, then only the man who lay with her shall die.^{(AG) 26} You shall do nothing to the young woman; the young woman has not committed an offense punishable by death, because this case is like that of someone who attacks and murders a neighbor. ²⁷ Since he found her in the open country, the engaged woman may have cried for help, but there was no one to rescue her.

²⁸ “If a man meets a virgin who is not engaged and seizes her and lies with her, and they are discovered,^{(AH) 29} the man who lay with her shall give fifty shekels of silver to the young woman’s father, and she shall become his wife. Because he violated her, he shall not be permitted to divorce her as long as he lives.

^30 [b]“A man shall not marry his father’s wife, thereby violating his father’s rights.^[c](AI)