Deuteronomy 21

Laws on Unsolved Murder, Captive Women, Firstborn Inheritance, and Rebellious Children

4 min read

1 If one be found slain in the land which the LORD your God gives you to possess it, lying in the field, and it be not known who has slain him:
2 Then your elders and your judges shall come forth, and they shall measure to the cities which are round about him that is slain:
3 And it shall be, that the city which is next to the slain man, even the elders of that city shall take an heifer, which has not been worked with, and which has not drawn in the yoke;
4 And the elders of that city shall bring down the heifer to a rough valley, which is neither eared nor sown, and shall strike off the heifer’s neck there in the valley:
5 And the priests the sons of Levi shall come near; for them the LORD your God has chosen to minister to him, and to bless in the name of the LORD; and by their word shall every controversy and every stroke be tried:
6 And all the elders of that city, that are next to the slain man, shall wash their hands over the heifer that is beheaded in the valley:
7 And they shall answer and say, Our hands have not shed this blood, neither have our eyes seen it.
8 Be merciful, O LORD, to your people Israel, whom you have redeemed, and lay not innocent blood to your people of Israel’s charge. And the blood shall be forgiven them.
9 So shall you put away the guilt of innocent blood from among you, when you shall do that which is right in the sight of the LORD. ¶
10 When you go forth to war against your enemies, and the LORD your God has delivered them into your hands, and you have taken them captive,
11 And see among the captives a beautiful woman, and have a desire to her, that you would have her to your wife;
12 Then you shall bring her home to your house, and she shall shave her head, and pare her nails;
13 And she shall put the raiment of her captivity from off her, and shall remain in your house, and mourn her father and her mother a full month: and after that you shall go in to her, and be her husband, and she shall be your wife.
14 And it shall be, if you have no delight in her, then you shall let her go where she will; but you shall not sell her at all for money, you shall not make merchandise of her, because you have humbled her. ¶
15 If a man have two wives, one beloved, and another hated, and they have born him children, both the beloved and the hated; and if the firstborn son be hers that was hated:
16 Then it shall be, when he makes his sons to inherit that which he has, that he may not make the son of the beloved firstborn before the son of the hated, which is indeed the firstborn:
17 But he shall acknowledge the son of the hated for the firstborn, by giving him a double portion of all that he has: for he is the beginning of his strength; the right of the firstborn is his. ¶
18 If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not listen to them:
19 Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out to the elders of his city, and to the gate of his place;
20 And they shall say to the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard.
21 And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shall you put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear. ¶
22 And if a man have committed a sin worthy of death, and he be to be put to death, and you hang him on a tree:
23 His body shall not remain all night on the tree, but you shall in any wise bury him that day; (for he that is hanged is accursed of God;) that your land be not defiled, which the LORD your God gives you for an inheritance.
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