Deuteronomy 21

Translated from the Hebrew of the Westminster Leningrad Codex. Tap a verse to see why it reads as it does. Tap a small letter to read its footnote.

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When someone is found slain

¹If someone is found slain, lying in the open country in the land that the LORD your God is giving you to take possession of, and no one knows who struck the victim down, ²your elders and your judges are to go out and measure the distance from the body to each of the towns around it. ³The elders of the town nearest the body are to take a heifer from the herd that has never been put to work and has never pulled in a yoke. ⁴The elders of that town are to lead the heifer down to a valley with a stream that never runs dry, on land that is neither plowed nor sown, and there in the valley they are to break the heifer’s neck. ⁵The priests, the sons of Levi, are to step forward. The LORD your God has chosen them to serve him and to pronounce blessings in the name of the LORD, and their word is to settle every dispute and every case of assault. ⁶Then all the elders of the town nearest the body are to wash their hands in the valley over the heifer whose neck was broken. ⁷They are to declare, ‘Our hands did not shed this blood, and our eyes did not see it done. ⁸Make atonement for your people Israel, whom you redeemed, LORD, and do not hold the guilt of innocent blood against your people Israel.’ Then the bloodshed will be atoned for on their behalf. ⁹In this way you will purge the guilt of innocent blood from among you, for you will be doing what is right in the sight of the LORD.

Women taken captive

¹⁰When you go out to war against your enemies and the LORD your God hands them over to you and you take some of them captive, ¹¹and you see among the captives a beautiful woman whom you desire and want to marry, ¹²you are to bring her into your home. She is to shave her head, trim her nails, ¹³and take off the clothes she was wearing when she was captured. She is to stay in your house and mourn for her father and mother a full month. After that you may sleep with her and be her husband, and she will be your wife. ¹⁴But if you are no longer pleased with her, you are to let her go free wherever she wishes. You must never sell her for money or treat her as a slave, because you have dishonored her.

The right of the firstborn

¹⁵If a man has two wives, one he loves and one he does not, and both have borne him sons, but the firstborn son is the son of the unloved wife, ¹⁶then when he divides his property among his sons as their inheritance, he must not give the rights of the firstborn to the son of the wife he loves in place of the son of the unloved wife, who is the true firstborn. ¹⁷He must acknowledge the son of the unloved wife as the firstborn by giving him a double share of all he has. That son is the first sign of his father’s strength, and the right of the firstborn belongs to him.

A stubborn and rebellious son

¹⁸Suppose a man has a son who is stubborn and rebellious, who will not obey his father or his mother and will not listen to them even when they discipline him, ¹⁹his father and mother are to seize him and bring him out to the elders of his town, to the gate of the place where he lives, ²⁰They are to 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.’ ²¹All the men of his town are then to stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you; all Israel will hear of it and be afraid.

²²If someone has committed a crime that carries the death penalty and has been put to death, and you hang the body on a tree, ²³you must not leave the body on the tree through the night. Be sure to bury it that same day, for anyone hung on a tree is under God’s curse. You must not make unclean the land that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance.