Laws of Warfare

20 “When you go out to battle against your enemies and see horses and chariots and people more numerous than you, do not be afraid of them; for the Lord your God, who brought you up from the land of Egypt, is with you. ² When you approach the battle, the priest shall come forward and speak to the people, ³ and shall say to them, ‘Hear, O Israel: you are advancing today to battle against your enemies. Do not lack courage. Do not be afraid, or panic, or tremble [in terror] before them, ⁴ for the Lord your God is He who goes with you, to fight for you against your enemies, to save you.’^{(A) 5} The officers shall also speak to the ^[a]soldiers, saying, ‘What man is there who has built a new house and has not yet ^[b]dedicated it? ^[c]Let him go and return to his house, otherwise he might die in the battle and another man would dedicate it. ⁶ What man has planted a vineyard and has not put it to use [harvesting its fruit]? Let him go and return to his house, otherwise he might die in the battle and another man would begin to use its fruit. ⁷ And who is the man who is engaged (legally promised) to a woman and has not married her? Let him go and return to his house, otherwise he might die in the battle and another man would marry her.’ ⁸ Then the officers shall speak further to the soldiers and say, ‘Who is the man who is afraid and lacks courage? Let him go and return to his house, so that he does not cause his brothers’ courage to fail like his own.’ ⁹ And it shall be when the officers have finished speaking to the soldiers, they shall appoint commanders of armies over them.

¹⁰ “When you advance to a city to fight against it, you shall [first] offer it terms of peace. ¹¹ If that city accepts your terms of peace and opens its gates to you, then all the people who are found in it shall become your forced labor and shall serve you. ¹² However, if it does not make peace with you, but makes war against you, then you shall lay siege to it. ¹³ When the Lord your God gives it into your hand, you shall strike down all the men in it with the edge of the sword. ¹⁴ Only the women and the children and the animals and everything that is in the city, all its spoil, you shall take as plunder for yourself; and you shall use the spoil of your enemies which the Lord your God has given you. ¹⁵ That is what you shall do to all the cities that are very far away from you, which are not among the cities of these nations nearby [which you are to dispossess]. ¹⁶ Only in the cities of these peoples that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, you shall not leave alive anything that breathes. ¹⁷ But you shall utterly destroy them, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite and the Jebusite, just as the Lord your God has commanded you, ¹⁸ so that they will not teach you to act in accordance with all the detestable practices which they have done [in worship and service] for their gods, and in this way cause you to sin against the Lord your God.

¹⁹ “When you besiege a city for ^[d]a long time, making war against it in order to capture it, you shall not destroy its [fruit-bearing] trees by swinging an axe against them; for you may eat from them, and you shall not cut them down. For is the tree of the field a man, that it should be besieged (destroyed) by you? ²⁰ Only the trees which you know are not ^[e]fruit trees shall you destroy and cut down, so that you may build ^[f]siegeworks against the city that is making war with you until it falls.

Expiation of a Crime

21 “If someone is found slain, lying in the field, in the land which the Lord your God gives you to possess, and it is not known who has killed him, ² then your elders and judges shall go out and measure the distance to the cities which are around the dead person. ³ It shall be that the elders of the city which is nearest to the dead man shall take a heifer of the herd, one 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 [river] valley with running water, which has not been plowed or planted, and shall break the heifer’s neck there in the valley. ⁵ Then the priests, the sons of Levi, shall approach, for the Lord your God has chosen them to serve Him and to bless in the Name (Presence) of the Lord; and every dispute and every assault (violent crime) shall be settled by them. ⁶ All the elders of that city nearest to the dead man shall wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the valley; ⁷ and they shall respond, and say, ‘Our hands did not shed this blood, nor did our eyes see it. ⁸ Forgive Your people Israel whom You have redeemed, O Lord, and do not put the guilt of innocent blood among Your people Israel.’ And the guilt of blood shall be forgiven them. ⁹ So shall you remove the guilt of innocent blood from among you, when you do what is right in the sight of the Lord.

Domestic Relations

¹⁰ “When you go out to battle against your enemies, and the Lord your God hands them over to you and you lead them away captive, ¹¹ and you see a beautiful woman among the captives, and desire her and would take her as your wife, ¹² then you shall bring her [home] to your house, and she shall shave her head and trim her nails [in preparation for mourning]. ¹³ She shall take off the clothes of her captivity and remain in your house, and weep (mourn) for her father and her mother a full month. After that you may go in to her and be her husband and she shall be your wife. ¹⁴ But it shall be that if you have no delight and take no pleasure in her, then you shall let her go ^[g]wherever she wishes. You certainly shall not sell her for money; you shall not deal with her as a slave or mistreat her, because you have humbled her [by forced marriage].

¹⁵ “If a man has two wives, one loved and the other ^[h]unloved, and both the loved and the unloved have born him sons, and the firstborn son belongs to the unloved wife, ¹⁶ then on the day when he wills his possessions to his sons, he cannot treat the son of his loved wife as firstborn in place of the son of the unloved wife—the [actual] firstborn. ¹⁷ Instead he shall acknowledge the son of the unloved as the firstborn, by giving him a double portion of all that he has, for he was the beginning of his strength (generative power); to him belongs the right of the firstborn.

¹⁸ “If any man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or of his mother, and when they reprimand and discipline him, he will not listen to them, ¹⁹ then his father and mother shall take hold of him, and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gateway of his hometown. ²⁰ They shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey us, he is a glutton and a drunkard.’^{(B) 21} Then all the men of his city shall stone him to death; so you shall remove the evil from among you, and all Israel will hear of it and be afraid.

²² “And if a man has committed a sin worthy of death, and he is put to death and [^[i]afterward] you hang him on a tree [as a public example],^{(C) 23} his body shall not hang all night on the tree, but you shall most certainly bury him on the same day (for he who is hanged is cursed by God), so that you do not defile your land which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance.^(D)

Various Laws

22 “You shall not see your countryman’s ox or his sheep straying away or being stolen, and ^[j]ignore [your duty to help] them; you shall certainly take them back to him.^{(E) 2} If your countryman is not nearby or you do not know him, you shall bring the animal to your house, and it shall stay with you until he searches for it; then you shall return it to him. ³ You shall do this with his donkey or with his garment or with anything that your countryman has lost and you have found. You are not allowed to ignore [your duty to help] them. ⁴ You shall not see your countryman’s donkey or his ox fall down along the road, and ignore [your duty to help] them; you shall certainly help him lift it up.

⁵ “A woman shall not wear a man’s clothing, nor shall a man put on a woman’s clothing; for whoever does these things is utterly repulsive to the Lord your God.

⁶ “If you happen to come upon a bird’s nest along the road, in any tree or on the ground, with young ones or eggs, and the mother [bird] is sitting on the young or on the eggs, you shall not take the mother with the young. ⁷ You shall certainly let the mother go, but you may take the young for yourself, so that it may be well with you and that you may prolong your days.

⁸ “When you build a new house, you shall make a railing (parapet) around your [flat] roof, so that you do not bring the guilt of [innocent] blood on your house if someone falls from it.

⁹ “You shall not sow your vineyard with two kinds of seed, or everything produced by the seed which you have sown and the yield of the vineyard will become defiled [and banned for use].

¹⁰ “You shall not plow with an ox [a clean animal] and a donkey [an unclean animal] ^[k]together.^(F)

¹¹ “You shall not wear a fabric made of wool and linen blended together [a fabric pagans believed to be magical].^(G)

¹² “You shall make tassels for yourself on the four corners of your outer garment with which you cover yourself.^(H)

Laws on Morality

¹³ “If any man takes a wife and goes in to her and then scorns and hates her, ¹⁴ and charges her [without cause] with shameful behavior and ^[l]publicly defames her, and says, ‘I took this woman, but when I approached her, I did not find in her evidence of virginity,’ ¹⁵ then the young woman’s father and her mother shall get and bring out the evidence of her virginity to the elders of the city at the gate [where court is held]. ¹⁶ The father of the young woman shall say to the elders, ‘I gave my daughter to this man as a wife, but he hates her and has turned against her; ¹⁷ and behold, he has made baseless charges against her, saying, “I did not find in your daughter the evidence of her virginity.” But this is the evidence of my daughter’s virginity.’ And they shall spread out the ^[m]garment before the elders of the city. ¹⁸ Then the elders of that city shall take the man and reprimand him, ¹⁹ and they shall fine him a hundred shekels of silver and give it to the father of the young woman, because he ^[n]publicly defamed a virgin of Israel. And she shall remain his wife; he is not allowed to divorce her as long as he lives.

²⁰ “But if this charge is true that the evidence of virginity was not found in the young woman, ²¹ then they shall bring her out to the doorway of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death because she has committed a deliberate sin in Israel by playing the prostitute in her father’s house. So you shall remove the evil from among you.

²² “If a man is ^[o]intimate with a woman who is another man’s wife, they shall both be put to death, the man who lay with the woman, and the woman. So you shall remove the evil from Israel.

²³ “If a young woman who is a virgin is engaged (legally betrothed) to a man, and another man finds her in the city and is intimate with her, ²⁴ then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city and stone them to death—the young woman because she did not cry out for help [though she was] in the city, and the man because he has violated his neighbor’s [promised] wife. So you shall remove the evil from among you.

²⁵ “However, if the man finds the girl who is engaged (legally betrothed) in the [open] field, and seizes her and is intimate with her [by force], then only the man who lies with her shall be put to death. ²⁶ But you shall do nothing to the young woman; she has committed no sin worthy of death, for this is the same as when a man attacks his neighbor and murders ^[p]him. ²⁷ When he found her in the [open] field, the engaged girl [may have] cried out for help, but there was no one to [hear and] save her.

²⁸ “If a man finds a girl who is a virgin, who is not engaged, and seizes her and is intimate with her and they are discovered, ²⁹ then the man who was intimate with her shall give fifty shekels of silver to the girl’s father, and she shall become his wife because he has violated her; he can ^[q]never divorce her.

³⁰ “^[r]A man shall not take his father’s [former] wife, so that he will not ^[s]expose his father’s wife.