Deuteronomy 23

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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¹A man must not marry his father’s wife; he must not uncover the edge of his father’s garment.

The assembly of the LORD

²No man whose testicles have been crushed or whose penis has been cut off may enter the assembly of the LORD.

³No one born of a forbidden union may enter the assembly of the LORD. None of their descendants may enter it, not even in the tenth generation.

⁴No Ammonite or Moabite may enter the assembly of the LORD. None of them may ever enter it, not even in the tenth generation, ⁵because they did not come to meet you with food and water on your journey after you left Egypt, and because Moab hired Balaam son of Beor, from Pethor in Aram-naharaim, to put a curse on you. ⁶But the LORD your God refused to listen to Balaam. Instead the LORD your God made the curse a blessing for you, since the LORD your God loved you. ⁷Never seek a peace treaty with them or work for their prosperity, as long as you live as a people.

⁸Do not detest an Edomite, for he is your relative. Do not detest an Egyptian, because you lived as a outsider in his land. ⁹The children born to them in the third generation may enter the assembly of the LORD.

Keeping the camp holy

¹⁰When you go out and camp against your enemies, guard yourself against anything that is wrong. ¹¹If any man among you is unclean because of an emission during the night, he must go outside the camp and not come inside it. ¹²Toward evening he is to bathe in water, and at sunset he may come back into the camp. ¹³Have a place set aside outside the camp, and go out there when you need to relieve yourself. ¹⁴Carry a digging tool among your gear, and when you squat outside, dig a hole with it, and then cover up your excrement. ¹⁵For the LORD your God moves about in your camp to rescue you and to hand your enemies over to you. So your camp must be holy, or he may see something indecent among you and turn away from you.

An escaped slave

¹⁶If a slave has escaped from his master and taken refuge with you, do not hand him back to his master. ¹⁷Let him live among you, in the place he chooses in any one of your towns, wherever suits him best. Do not mistreat him.

¹⁸No Israelite woman is to become a shrine prostitute, and no Israelite man is to become a shrine prostitute. ¹⁹Do not bring a prostitute’s earnings or the wages of a male prostitute into the house of the LORD your God to pay any vow, because both are detestable to the LORD your God. ²⁰Do not charge a fellow Israelite interest, whether on money, on food, or on anything else that can be lent for interest. ²¹You may charge interest to a foreigner, but not to a fellow Israelite, so that the LORD your God may bless you in everything you set your hand to in the land you are entering to take possession of.

Vows and a neighbor’s harvest

²²When you make a vow to the LORD your God, do not put off paying it, for the LORD your God will certainly ask it of you, and you will be guilty of sin. ²³But if you hold back from making a vow, you will not be guilty of sin. ²⁴Be careful to do what you have said, just as you freely vowed it to the LORD your God with your own mouth.

²⁵When you go into your neighbor’s vineyard, you may eat as many grapes as you like, until you are full, but do not put any into a basket.

²⁶When you go into your neighbor’s field of standing grain, you may pick heads of grain with your hand, but do not take a sickle to your neighbor’s grain.