Deuteronomy 21 - Legacy Standard Bible

Deuteronomy 21

Atonement for Innocent Blood

“If a slain person is found fallen in the open country in the land which Yahweh your God gives you to 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 And 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 they shall break the heifer’s neck there in the valley. 5 Then the priests, the sons of Levi, shall come near, for Yahweh your God has chosen them to minister for Him and to bless in the name of Yahweh; and every dispute and every assault shall be settled by them. 6 And all the elders of that city who are nearest to the slain man shall 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 Atone for Your people Israel whom You have redeemed, O Yahweh, and do not place the guilt of innocent blood in the midst of Your people Israel.’ And the bloodguiltiness shall be atoned for them. 9 So you shall purge the guilt of innocent blood from your midst, when you do what is right in the eyes of Yahweh.

Statutes About Domestic Relations

10 “If you go out to battle against your enemies, and Yahweh your God gives them over into your hands and you take them away captive, 11 and see among the captives a beautiful woman and set your affection on her and would take her as a wife for yourself, 12 then you shall bring her home to your house, and she shall shave her head and trim her nails. 13 She shall also remove the clothes of her captivity and shall remain in your house and weep for 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 And it will be that, if you do not desire her, then you shall let her go wherever she wishes; but you shall certainly not sell her for money; you shall not mistreat her because you have humbled her. 15 “If a man has two wives, the one loved and the other unloved, and both the loved and the unloved have borne him sons, if the firstborn son belongs to the unloved, 16 then it shall be in the day he wills what he has to his sons, he cannot make the son of the loved the firstborn before the son of the unloved, who is the firstborn. 17 But he shall recognize the firstborn, the son of the unloved, by giving him a double portion of all that he has, for he is the first of his vigor; the legal judgment for the firstborn belongs to him. 18 “If any man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey his father or his mother, and when they discipline 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 at the gateway of his hometown. 20 Then they shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious; he will not listen to our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.’ 21 Then all the men of his city shall stone him, and he will die; so you shall purge the evil from your midst, and all Israel will hear of it and fear.

A Man Hanged on a Tree Is Cursed

22 “And if a man has committed a sin, the judgment of which is death, and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, 23 his corpse shall not hang all night on the tree, but you shall surely bury him on the same day (because cursed of God is he who is hanged), so that you do not make unclean your land which Yahweh your God gives you as an inheritance.