Deuteronomy 21

₁Moses said: ‘The Lord your God is giving you a land that will belong to you, and if you see someone who has been murdered in the field but you do not know who has killed him, ₂then your leaders and judges must go and measure how far the towns around the body of the dead man are from him. ₃The leaders of the town that is the nearest to the dead man must take a young cow that has never worked before and has not had a yoke on her neck or pulled a plough. ₄They must take the calf to a valley where there is always water and where no one ploughs and sows and then they must break the calf's neck and kill it there in the valley. ₅Then the priests who are descendants of Levi must come, because the Lord your God has chosen them to work for Him and to bless people. Those are the priests who must judge when people argue and fight with each other. ₆All the leaders of the town nearest to the body of the dead man must wash their hands above the dead calf ₇and they must say: “We did not kill this person and we did not see who did it. ₈Lord, please accept this atonement for your people, the Israelites. You have forgiven them and saved them. Please do not punish your people, the Israelites, for something that they did not do.”

Then the Lord will make atonement for the murder. ₉That is how you must take away everything bad that can make you guilty. Yes, you must do things that the Lord loves.’

₁₀‘When you go to war_against your enemies and the Lord helps you win and you catch people to be your prisoners, ₁₁then some of your men will see beautiful women among the prisoners and like them and want to marry them. ₁₂If that happens, the man must bring the woman to his house and she must shave off her hair and cut her finger nails. ₁₃She must take off her clothes, the clothes that shows that she is a prisoner. She must stay in the man's house for one month and cry and mourn for her parents. After that the man may marry her and sleep with her and she may become his wife. ₁₄Later, if the man is not happy with her anymore, he can let her go where she wants to go. He may not sell her and she may not become his slave girl, because he has slept with her as his wife.’

₁₅‘If a man has 2 wives and he loves one of them, but he does not love the other wife, he must be fair to their children. If both women have children and the oldest son is the son of the woman whom the man does not love so much, ₁₆he may not take away the right_of_the_firstborn_son and give it to the son of the wife that he loves more, when he decides what each son will inherit. ₁₇No, he must show that he knows that the oldest son must inherit twice as much as his other son, the son of the woman whom he loves more, because the oldest son is his first child and he must respect the rights of his oldest son.’

₁₈‘If someone has a son who is stubborn and rebellious and does not listen to his parents when they try to teach him what is right, ₁₉then his parents must take him to the leaders of the town, to the gate of the town where he lives. ₂₀His parents must tell the leaders of the town: “This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He does not want to do what we say. He only wants to eat and drink.”

₂₁Then the men of that town must throw stones at the son and kill him. You must take away everything that is bad from the people. Everyone in Israel will know about this and they will be afraid to do wrong.’

₂₂‘If someone is guilty of murder or something like that, and a judge says they must punish him by hanging him on a pole, ₂₃then his body may not hang on the pole when night time comes. You must bury the body on the same day. You must do this because God has cursed that person who is hanging on the pole and he will make the land impure. It is the land that the Lord your God gave to belong to you.’