Deuteronomy 20-22

New King James Version

Principles Governing Warfare

20 “When you go out to battle against your enemies, and see ^(A)horses and chariots and people more numerous than you, do not be ^(B)afraid of them; for the Lord your God is ^(C)with you, who brought you up from the land of Egypt. ² So it shall be, when you are on the verge of battle, that the priest shall approach and speak to the people. ³ And he shall say to them, ‘Hear, O Israel: Today you are on the verge of battle with your enemies. Do not let your heart faint, do not be afraid, and do not tremble or be terrified because of them; ⁴ for the Lord your God is He who goes with you, ^(D)to fight for you against your enemies, to save you.’

⁵ “Then the officers shall speak to the people, saying: ‘What man is there who has built a new house and has not ^(E)dedicated it? Let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man dedicate it. ⁶ Also what man is there who has planted a vineyard and has not eaten of it? Let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man eat of it. ^7 (F)And what man is there who is betrothed to a woman and has not married her? Let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man marry her.’

⁸ “The officers shall speak further to the people, and say, ^(G)‘What man is there who is fearful and fainthearted? Let him go and return to his house, ^[a]lest the heart of his brethren faint like his heart.’ ⁹ And so it shall be, when the officers have finished speaking to the people, that they shall make captains of the armies to lead the people.

¹⁰ “When you go near a city to fight against it, ^(H)then proclaim an offer of peace to it. ¹¹ And it shall be that if they accept your offer of peace, and open to you, then all the people who are found in it shall be placed under tribute to you, and serve you. ¹² Now if the city will not make peace with you, but war against you, then you shall besiege it. ¹³ And when the Lord your God delivers it into your hands, ^(I)you shall strike every male in it with the edge of the sword. ¹⁴ But the women, the little ones, ^(J)the livestock, and all that is in the city, all its spoil, you shall plunder for yourself; and ^(K)you shall eat the enemies’ plunder which the Lord your God gives you. ¹⁵ Thus you shall do to all the cities which are very far from you, which are not of the cities of these nations.

¹⁶ “But ^(L)of the cities of these peoples which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance, you shall let nothing that breathes remain alive, ¹⁷ but you shall utterly destroy them: the Hittite and the Amorite and the Canaanite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite, just as the Lord your God has commanded you, ¹⁸ lest ^(M)they teach you to do according to all their ^[b]abominations which they have done for their gods, and you ^(N)sin against the Lord your God.

¹⁹ “When you besiege a city for a long time, while making war against it to take it, you shall not destroy its trees by wielding an ax against them; if you can eat of them, do not cut them down to use in the siege, for the tree of the field is man’s food. ²⁰ Only the trees which you know are not trees for food you may destroy and cut down, to build siegeworks against the city that makes war with you, until it is subdued.

The Law Concerning Unsolved Murder

21 “If anyone is found slain, lying in the field in the land which the Lord your God is giving you to possess, and it is not known who killed him, ² then your elders and your judges shall go out and measure the distance from the slain man to the surrounding cities. ³ And it shall be that the elders of the city nearest to the slain man will take a heifer which has not been worked and which has not pulled with a ^(O)yoke. ⁴ The elders of that city shall bring the heifer down to a valley with flowing water, which is neither plowed nor 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 ^(P)the Lord your God has chosen them to minister to Him and to bless in the name of the Lord; ^(Q)by their word every controversy and every ^[c]assault shall be settled. ⁶ And all the elders of that city nearest to the slain man ^(R)shall wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the valley. ⁷ Then they shall answer and say, ‘Our hands have not shed this blood, nor have our eyes seen it. ⁸ Provide atonement, O Lord, for Your people Israel, whom You have redeemed, ^(S)and do not lay innocent blood to the charge of Your people Israel.’ And atonement shall be provided on their behalf for the blood. ⁹ So ^(T)you shall put away the guilt of innocent blood from among you when you do what is right in the sight of the Lord.

Female Captives

¹⁰ “When you go out to war against your enemies, and the Lord your God delivers them into your hand, and you take them captive, ¹¹ and you see among the captives a beautiful woman, and desire her and would take her for your ^(U)wife, ¹² then you shall bring her home to your house, and she shall ^(V)shave her head and trim her nails. ¹³ She shall put off the clothes of her captivity, remain in your house, and ^(W)mourn 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 And it shall be, if you have no delight in her, then you shall set her free, but you certainly shall not sell her for money; you shall not treat her brutally, because you have ^(X)humbled her.

Firstborn Inheritance Rights

¹⁵ “If a man has two wives, one loved ^(Y)and the other unloved, and they have borne him children, both the loved and the unloved, and if the firstborn son is of her who is unloved, ¹⁶ then it shall be, ^(Z)on the day he bequeaths his possessions to his sons, that he must not bestow firstborn status on the son of the loved wife in preference to the son of the unloved, the true firstborn. ¹⁷ But he shall acknowledge the son of the unloved wife as the firstborn ^(AA)by giving him a double portion of all that he has, for he ^(AB)is the beginning of his strength; ^(AC)the right of the firstborn is his.

The Rebellious Son

¹⁸ “If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and who, when they have chastened him, will not heed them, ¹⁹ then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city, to the gate of his city. ²⁰ And they shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.’ ²¹ Then all the men of his city shall stone him to death with stones; ^(AD)so you shall put away the evil from among you, ^(AE)and all Israel shall hear and fear.

Miscellaneous Laws

²² “If a man has committed a sin ^(AF)deserving of death, and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, ^23 (AG)his body shall not remain overnight on the tree, but you shall surely bury him that day, so that ^(AH)you do not defile the land which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance; for ^(AI)he who is hanged is accursed of God.

Various Laws of Morality

22 “You ^(AJ)shall not see your brother’s ox or his sheep going astray, and ^[d]hide yourself from them; you shall certainly bring them back to your brother. ² And if your brother is not near you, or if you do not know him, then you shall bring it to your own house, and it shall remain with you until your brother seeks it; then you shall restore it to him. ³ You shall do the same with his donkey, and so shall you do with his garment; with any lost thing of your brother’s, which he has lost and you have found, you shall do likewise; you ^[e]must not hide yourself.

^4 (AK)“You shall not see your brother’s donkey or his ox fall down along the road, and hide yourself from them; you shall surely help him lift them up again.

⁵ “A woman shall not wear anything that pertains to a man, nor shall a man put on a woman’s garment, for all who do so are ^[f]an abomination to the Lord your God.

⁶ “If a bird’s nest happens to be before you along the way, in any tree or on the ground, with young ones or eggs, with the mother sitting on the young or on the eggs, ^(AL)you shall not take the mother with the young; ⁷ you shall surely let the mother go, and take the young for yourself, ^(AM)that it may be well with you and that you may prolong your days.

⁸ “When you build a new house, then you shall make a parapet for your roof, that you may not bring guilt of bloodshed on your household if anyone falls from it.

^9 (AN)“You shall not sow your vineyard with different kinds of seed, lest the yield of the seed which you have sown and the fruit of your vineyard be defiled.

^10 (AO)“You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together.

^11 (AP)“You shall not wear a garment of different sorts, such as wool and linen mixed together.

¹² “You shall make ^(AQ)tassels on the four corners of the clothing with which you cover yourself.

Laws of Sexual Morality

¹³ “If any man takes a wife, and goes in to her, and ^(AR)detests her, ¹⁴ and charges her with shameful conduct, and brings a bad name on her, and says, ‘I took this woman, and when I came to her I found she was not a virgin,’ ¹⁵ then the father and mother of the young woman shall take and bring out the evidence of the young woman’s virginity to the elders of the city at the gate. ¹⁶ And the young woman’s father shall say to the elders, ‘I gave my daughter to this man as wife, and he detests her. ¹⁷ Now he has charged her with shameful conduct, saying, “I found your daughter was not a virgin,” and yet these are the evidences of my daughter’s virginity.’ And they shall spread the cloth before the elders of the city. ¹⁸ Then the elders of that city shall take that man and punish him; ¹⁹ and they shall fine him one hundred shekels of silver and give them to the father of the young woman, because he has brought a bad name on a virgin of Israel. And she shall be his wife; he cannot divorce her all his days.

²⁰ “But if the thing is true, and evidences of virginity are not found for the young woman, ²¹ then they shall bring out the young woman to the door of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death with ^(AS)stones, because she has ^(AT)done a disgraceful thing in Israel, to play the harlot in her father’s house. ^(AU)So you shall ^[g]put away the evil from among you.

^22 (AV)“If a man is found lying with a woman married to a husband, then both of them shall die—the man that lay with the woman, and the woman; so you shall put away the evil from Israel.

²³ “If a young woman who is a virgin is ^(AW)betrothed to a husband, and a man finds her in the city and lies with her, ²⁴ then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city, and you shall stone them to death with stones, the young woman because she did not cry out in the city, and the man because he ^(AX)humbled his neighbor’s wife; ^(AY)so you shall put away the evil from among you.

²⁵ “But if a man finds a betrothed young woman in the countryside, and the man forces her and lies with her, then only the man who lay with her shall die. ²⁶ But you shall do nothing to the young woman; there is in the young woman no sin deserving of death, for just as when a man rises against his neighbor and kills him, even so is this matter. ²⁷ For he found her in the countryside, and the betrothed young woman cried out, but there was no one to save her.

^28 (AZ)“If a man finds a young woman who is a virgin, who is not betrothed, and he seizes her and lies with her, and they are found out, ²⁹ then the man who lay with her shall give to the young woman’s father ^(BA)fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife ^(BB)because he has humbled her; he shall not be permitted to divorce her all his days.

^30 (BC)“A man shall not take his father’s wife, nor ^(BD)uncover his father’s bed.