The Dignity of the Individual

¹When the LORD your God cuts off the nations whose land the LORD your God gives you, and you succeed them and dwell in their cities and in their houses,

²you shall set apart three cities for yourselves in the middle of your land, which the LORD your God gives you to possess.

³You shall prepare the way, and divide the borders of your land which the LORD your God causes you to inherit into three parts, that every man slayer may flee there.

⁴This is the case of the man slayer who shall flee there and live: Whoever kills his neighbor unintentionally, and didn’t hate him in time past—

⁵as when a man goes into the forest with his neighbor to chop wood and his hand swings the ax to cut down the tree, and the head slips from the handle and hits his neighbor so that he dies—he shall flee to one of these cities and live.

⁶Otherwise, the avenger of blood might pursue the man slayer while hot anger is in his heart and overtake him, because the way is long, and strike him mortally, even though he was not worthy of death, because he didn’t hate him in time past.

⁷Therefore I command you to set apart three cities for yourselves.

⁸If the LORD your God enlarges your border, as he has sworn to your fathers, and gives you all the land which he promised to give to your fathers;

⁹and if you keep all this commandment to do it, which I command you today, to love the LORD your God, and to walk ever in his ways, then you shall add three cities more for yourselves, in addition to these three.

¹⁰This is so that innocent blood will not be shed in the middle of your land which the LORD your God gives you for an inheritance, leaving blood guilt on you.

¹¹But if any man hates his neighbor, lies in wait for him, rises up against him, strikes him mortally so that he dies, and he flees into one of these cities;

¹²then the elders of his city shall send and bring him there, and deliver him into the hand of the avenger of blood, that he may die.

¹³Your eye shall not pity him, but you shall purge the innocent blood from Israel that it may go well with you.

¹⁴You shall not remove your neighbor’s landmark, which they of old time have set, in your inheritance which you shall inherit, in the land that the LORD your God gives you to possess.

¹⁵One witness shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity, or for any sin that he sins. At the mouth of two witnesses, or at the mouth of three witnesses, shall a matter be established.

¹⁶If an unrighteous witness rises up against any man to testify against him of wrongdoing,

¹⁷then both the men, between whom the controversy is, shall stand before the LORD, before the priests and the judges who shall be in those days;

¹⁸and the judges shall make diligent inquisition; and behold, if the witness is a false witness, and has testified falsely against his brother,

¹⁹then you shall do to him as he had thought to do to his brother. So you shall remove the evil from among you.

²⁰Those who remain shall hear, and fear, and will never again commit any such evil among you.

²¹Your eyes shall not pity: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.

¹When you go out to battle against your enemies, and see horses, chariots, and a people more numerous than you, you shall not be afraid of them; for the LORD your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt, is with you.

²It shall be, when you draw near to the battle, that the priest shall approach and speak to the people,

³and shall tell them, “Hear, Israel, you draw near today to battle against your enemies. Don’t let your heart faint! Don’t be afraid, nor tremble, neither be scared of them;

⁴for the LORD your God is he who goes with you, to fight for you against your enemies, to save you.”

⁵The officers shall speak to the people, saying, “What man is there who has built a new house, and has not dedicated it? Let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle, and another man dedicate it.

⁶What man is there who has planted a vineyard, and has not used its fruit? Let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle, and another man use its fruit.

⁷What man is there who has pledged to be married to a wife, and has not taken her? Let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle, and another man take her.”

⁸The officers shall speak further to the people, and they shall say, “What man is there who is fearful and faint-hearted? Let him go and return to his house, lest his brother’s heart melt as his heart.”

⁹It shall be, when the officers have finished speaking to the people, that they shall appoint captains of armies at the head of the people.

¹⁰When you draw near to a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace to it.

¹¹It shall be, if it gives you answer of peace and opens to you, then it shall be that all the people who are found therein shall become forced laborers to you, and shall serve you.

¹²If it will make no peace with you, but will make war against you, then you shall besiege it.

¹³When the LORD your God delivers it into your hand, you shall strike every male of it with the edge of the sword;

¹⁴but the women, the little ones, the livestock, and all that is in the city, even all its plunder, you shall take for plunder for yourself. You may use the plunder of your enemies, which the LORD your God has given you.

¹⁵Thus you shall do to all the cities which are very far off from you, which are not of the cities of these nations.

¹⁶But of the cities of these peoples that the LORD your God gives you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes;

¹⁷but you shall utterly destroy them: the Hittite, the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite, as the LORD your God has commanded you;

¹⁸that they not teach you to follow all their abominations, which they have done for their gods; so would you sin against the LORD your God.

¹⁹When you shall besiege a city a long time, in making war against it to take it, you shall not destroy its trees by wielding an ax against them; for you may eat of them. You shall not cut them down, for is the tree of the field man, that it should be besieged by you?

²⁰Only the trees that you know are not trees for food, you shall destroy and cut them down. You shall build bulwarks against the city that makes war with you, until it falls.

¹If someone is found slain in the land which the LORD your God gives you to possess, lying in the field, and it isn’t known who has struck him,

²then your elders and your judges shall come out, and they shall measure to the cities which are around him who is slain.

³It shall be that the elders of the city which is nearest to the slain man shall take a heifer of the herd, which hasn’t been worked with and which has not drawn in the yoke.

⁴The elders of that city shall bring the heifer down to a valley with running water, which is neither plowed nor sown, and shall break the heifer’s neck there in the valley.

⁵The priests the sons of Levi shall come near, for them the LORD your God has chosen to minister to him, and to bless in the LORD’s name; and according to their word shall every controversy and every assault be decided.

⁶All the elders of that city which is nearest to the slain man shall wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the valley.

⁷They shall answer and say, “Our hands have not shed this blood, neither have our eyes seen it.

⁸Forgive, LORD, your people Israel, whom you have redeemed, and don’t allow innocent blood among your people Israel.” The blood shall be forgiven them.

⁹So you shall put away the innocent blood from among you, when you shall do that which is right in the LORD’s eyes.

¹⁰When you go out to battle against your enemies, and the LORD your God delivers them into your hands and you carry them away captive,

¹¹and see among the captives a beautiful woman, and you are attracted to her, and desire to take her as your wife,

¹²then you shall bring her home to your house. She shall shave her head and trim her nails.

¹³She shall take off the clothing of her captivity, and shall remain in your house, and bewail her father and her mother a full month. After that you shall go in to her and be her husband, and she shall be your wife.

¹⁴It shall be, if you have no delight in her, then you shall let her go where she desires; but you shall not sell her at all for money. You shall not deal with her as a slave, because you have humbled her.

¹⁵If a man has two wives, the one beloved and the other hated, and they have borne him children, both the beloved and the hated, and if the firstborn son is hers who was hated,

¹⁶then it shall be, in the day that he causes his sons to inherit that which he has, that he may not give the son of the beloved the rights of the firstborn before the son of the hated, who is the firstborn;

¹⁷but he shall acknowledge the firstborn, the son of the hated, by giving him a double portion of all that he has; for he is the beginning of his strength. The right of the firstborn is his.

¹⁸If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and though they chasten him, will not listen to them,

¹⁹then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city and to the gate of his place.

²⁰They shall tell the elders of his city, “This our son is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey our voice. He is a glutton and a drunkard.”

²¹All the men of his city shall stone him to death with stones. So you shall remove the evil from among you. All Israel shall hear, and fear.

²²If a man has committed a sin worthy of death, and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree,

²³his body shall not remain all night on the tree, but you shall surely bury him the same day; for he who is hanged is accursed of God. Don’t defile your land which the LORD your God gives you for an inheritance.

¹You shall not see your brother’s ox or his sheep go astray and hide yourself from them. You shall surely bring them again to your brother.

²If your brother isn’t near to you, or if you don’t know him, then you shall bring it home to your house, and it shall be with you until your brother comes looking for it, and you shall restore it to him.

³So you shall do with his donkey. So you shall do with his garment. So you shall do with every lost thing of your brother’s, which he has lost and you have found. You may not hide yourself.

⁴You shall not see your brother’s donkey or his ox fallen down by the way, and hide yourself from them. You shall surely help him to lift them up again.

⁵A woman shall not wear men’s clothing, neither shall a man put on women’s clothing; for whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD your God.

⁶If you come across a bird’s nest on the way, in any tree or on the ground, with young ones or eggs, and the hen sitting on the young, or on the eggs, you shall not take the hen with the young.

⁷You shall surely let the hen go, but the young you may take for yourself, that it may be well with you, and that you may prolong your days.

⁸When you build a new house, then you shall make a railing around your roof, so that you don’t bring blood on your house if anyone falls from there.

⁹You shall not sow your vineyard with two kinds of seed, lest all the fruit be defiled, the seed which you have sown, and the increase of the vineyard.

¹⁰You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together.

¹¹You shall not wear clothes of wool and linen woven together.

¹²You shall make yourselves fringes on the four corners of your cloak with which you cover yourself.

¹³If any man takes a wife, and goes in to her, hates her,

¹⁴accuses her of shameful things, gives her a bad name, and says, “I took this woman, and when I came near to her, I didn’t find in her the tokens of virginity;”

¹⁵then the young lady’s father and mother shall take and bring the tokens of the young lady’s virginity to the elders of the city in the gate.

¹⁶The young lady’s father shall tell the elders, “I gave my daughter to this man as his wife, and he hates her.

¹⁷Behold, he has accused her of shameful things, saying, ‘I didn’t find in your daughter the tokens of virginity;’ and yet these are the tokens of my daughter’s virginity.” They shall spread the cloth before the elders of the city.

¹⁸The elders of that city shall take the man and chastise him.

¹⁹They shall fine him one hundred shekels of silver, and give them to the father of the young lady, because he has given a bad name to a virgin of Israel. She shall be his wife. He may not put her away all his days.

²⁰But if this thing is true, that the tokens of virginity were not found in the young lady,

²¹then they shall bring out the young lady to the door of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death with stones, because she has done folly in Israel, to play the prostitute in her father’s house. So you shall remove the evil from among you.

²²If a man is found lying with a woman married to a husband, then they shall both die, the man who lay with the woman and the woman. So you shall remove the evil from Israel.

²³If there is a young lady who is a virgin pledged to be married to a husband, and a man finds her in the city, and lies with her,

²⁴then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city, and you shall stone them to death with stones; the lady, because she didn’t cry, being in the city; and the man, because he has humbled his neighbor’s wife. So you shall remove the evil from among you.

²⁵But if the man finds the lady who is pledged to be married in the field, and the man forces her and lies with her, then only the man who lay with her shall die;

²⁶but to the lady you shall do nothing. There is in the lady no sin worthy of death; for as when a man rises against his neighbor and kills him, even so is this matter;

²⁷for he found her in the field, the pledged to be married lady cried, and there was no one to save her.

²⁸If a man finds a lady who is a virgin, who is not pledged to be married, grabs her and lies with her, and they are found,

²⁹then the man who lay with her shall give to the lady’s father fifty shekels of silver. She shall be his wife, because he has humbled her. He may not put her away all his days.

³⁰A man shall not take his father’s wife, and shall not uncover his father’s skirt.

¹He who is emasculated by crushing or cutting shall not enter into the LORD’s assembly.

²A person born of a forbidden union shall not enter into the LORD’s assembly; even to the tenth generation shall no one of his enter into the LORD’s assembly.

³An Ammonite or a Moabite shall not enter into the LORD’s assembly; even to the tenth generation shall no one belonging to them enter into the LORD’s assembly forever,

⁴because they didn’t meet you with bread and with water on the way when you came out of Egypt, and because they hired against you Balaam the son of Beor from Pethor of Mesopotamia, to curse you.

⁵Nevertheless the LORD your God wouldn’t listen to Balaam, but the LORD your God turned the curse into a blessing to you, because the LORD your God loved you.

⁶You shall not seek their peace nor their prosperity all your days forever.

⁷You shall not abhor an Edomite, for he is your brother. You shall not abhor an Egyptian, because you lived as a foreigner in his land.

⁸The children of the third generation who are born to them may enter into the LORD’s assembly.

⁹When you go out and camp against your enemies, then you shall keep yourselves from every evil thing.

¹⁰If there is among you any man who is not clean by reason of that which happens to him by night, then shall he go outside of the camp. He shall not come within the camp;

¹¹but it shall be, when evening comes, he shall bathe himself in water. When the sun is down, he shall come within the camp.

¹²You shall have a place also outside of the camp where you go relieve yourself.

¹³You shall have a trowel among your weapons. It shall be, when you relieve yourself, you shall dig with it, and shall turn back and cover your excrement;

¹⁴for the LORD your God walks in the middle of your camp, to deliver you, and to give up your enemies before you. Therefore your camp shall be holy, that he may not see an unclean thing in you, and turn away from you.

¹⁵You shall not deliver to his master a servant who has escaped from his master to you.

¹⁶He shall dwell with you, among you, in the place which he shall choose within one of your gates, where it pleases him best. You shall not oppress him.

¹⁷There shall be no prostitute of the daughters of Israel, neither shall there be a sodomite of the sons of Israel.

¹⁸You shall not bring the hire of a prostitute, or the wages of a male prostitute, into the house of the LORD your God for any vow; for both of these are an abomination to the LORD your God.

¹⁹You shall not lend on interest to your brother: interest of money, interest of food, interest of anything that is lent on interest.

²⁰You may charge a foreigner interest; but you shall not charge your brother interest, that the LORD your God may bless you in all that you put your hand to, in the land where you go in to possess it.

²¹When you vow a vow to the LORD your God, you shall not be slack to pay it, for the LORD your God will surely require it of you; and it would be sin in you.

²²But if you refrain from making a vow, it shall be no sin in you.

²³You shall observe and do that which has gone out of your lips. Whatever you have vowed to the LORD your God as a free will offering, which you have promised with your mouth, you must do.

²⁴When you come into your neighbor’s vineyard, then you may eat your fill of grapes at your own pleasure; but you shall not put any in your container.

²⁵When you come into your neighbor’s standing grain, then you may pluck the ears with your hand; but you shall not use a sickle on your neighbor’s standing grain.

¹When a man takes a wife and marries her, then it shall be, if she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some unseemly thing in her, that he shall write her a certificate of divorce, put it in her hand, and send her out of his house.

²When she has departed out of his house, she may go and be another man’s wife.

³If the latter husband hates her, and writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house; or if the latter husband dies, who took her to be his wife;

⁴her former husband, who sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife after she is defiled; for that would be an abomination to the LORD. You shall not cause the land to sin, which the LORD your God gives you for an inheritance.

⁵When a man takes a new wife, he shall not go out in the army, neither shall he be assigned any business. He shall be free at home one year, and shall cheer his wife whom he has taken.

⁶No man shall take the mill or the upper millstone as a pledge, for he takes a life in pledge.

⁷If a man is found stealing any of his brothers of the children of Israel, and he deals with him as a slave, or sells him, then that thief shall die. So you shall remove the evil from among you.

⁸Be careful in the plague of leprosy, that you observe diligently and do according to all that the Levitical priests teach you. As I commanded them, so you shall observe to do.

⁹Remember what the LORD your God did to Miriam, by the way as you came out of Egypt.

¹⁰When you lend your neighbor any kind of loan, you shall not go into his house to get his pledge.

¹¹You shall stand outside, and the man to whom you lend shall bring the pledge outside to you.

¹²If he is a poor man, you shall not sleep with his pledge.

¹³You shall surely restore to him the pledge when the sun goes down, that he may sleep in his garment and bless you. It shall be righteousness to you before the LORD your God.

¹⁴You shall not oppress a hired servant who is poor and needy, whether he is one of your brothers or one of the foreigners who are in your land within your gates.

¹⁵In his day you shall give him his wages, neither shall the sun go down on it, for he is poor and sets his heart on it, lest he cry against you to the LORD, and it be sin to you.

¹⁶The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers. Every man shall be put to death for his own sin.

¹⁷You shall not deprive the foreigner or the fatherless of justice, nor take a widow’s clothing in pledge;

¹⁸but you shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt, and the LORD your God redeemed you there. Therefore I command you to do this thing.

¹⁹When you reap your harvest in your field, and have forgotten a sheaf in the field, you shall not go again to get it. It shall be for the foreigner, for the fatherless, and for the widow, that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hands.

²⁰When you beat your olive tree, you shall not go over the boughs again. It shall be for the foreigner, for the fatherless, and for the widow.

²¹When you harvest your vineyard, you shall not glean it after yourselves. It shall be for the foreigner, for the fatherless, and for the widow.

²²You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt. Therefore I command you to do this thing.

¹If there is a controversy between men, and they come to judgment and the judges judge them, then they shall justify the righteous and condemn the wicked.

²It shall be, if the wicked man is worthy to be beaten, that the judge shall cause him to lie down and to be beaten before his face, according to his wickedness, by number.

³He may sentence him to no more than forty stripes. He shall not give more, lest if he should give more and beat him more than that many stripes, then your brother will be degraded in your sight.

⁴You shall not muzzle the ox when he treads out the grain.

⁵If brothers dwell together, and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of the dead shall not be married outside to a stranger. Her husband’s brother shall go in to her, and take her as his wife, and perform the duty of a husband’s brother to her.

⁶It shall be that the firstborn whom she bears shall succeed in the name of his brother who is dead, that his name not be blotted out of Israel.

⁷If the man doesn’t want to take his brother’s wife, then his brother’s wife shall go up to the gate to the elders, and say, “My husband’s brother refuses to raise up to his brother a name in Israel. He will not perform the duty of a husband’s brother to me.”

⁸Then the elders of his city shall call him, and speak to him. If he stands and says, “I don’t want to take her,”

⁹then his brother’s wife shall come to him in the presence of the elders, and loose his sandal from off his foot, and spit in his face. She shall answer and say, “So shall it be done to the man who does not build up his brother’s house.”

¹⁰His name shall be called in Israel, “The house of him who had his sandal removed.”

¹¹When men strive against each other, and the wife of one draws near to deliver her husband out of the hand of him who strikes him, and puts out her hand, and grabs him by his private parts,

¹²then you shall cut off her hand. Your eye shall have no pity.

¹³You shall not have in your bag diverse weights, one heavy and one light.

¹⁴You shall not have in your house diverse measures, one large and one small.

¹⁵You shall have a perfect and just weight. You shall have a perfect and just measure, that your days may be long in the land which the LORD your God gives you.

¹⁶For all who do such things, all who do unrighteously, are an abomination to the LORD your God.

¹⁷Remember what Amalek did to you by the way as you came out of Egypt,

¹⁸how he met you by the way, and struck the rearmost of you, all who were feeble behind you, when you were faint and weary; and he didn’t fear God.

¹⁹Therefore it shall be, when the LORD your God has given you rest from all your enemies all around, in the land which the LORD your God gives you for an inheritance to possess it, that you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under the sky. You shall not forget.

¹It shall be, when you have come in to the land which the LORD your God gives you for an inheritance, possess it, and dwell in it,

²that you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you shall bring in from your land that the LORD your God gives you. You shall put it in a basket, and shall go to the place which the LORD your God shall choose to cause his name to dwell there.

³You shall come to the priest who shall be in those days, and tell him, “I profess today to the LORD your God, that I have come to the land which the LORD swore to our fathers to give us.”

⁴The priest shall take the basket out of your hand, and set it down before the LORD your God’s altar.

⁵You shall answer and say before the LORD your God, “My father was a Syrian ready to perish. He went down into Egypt, and lived there, few in number. There he became a great, mighty, and populous nation.

⁶The Egyptians mistreated us, afflicted us, and imposed hard labor on us.

⁷Then we cried to the LORD, the God of our fathers. The LORD heard our voice, and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression.

⁸The LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand, with an outstretched arm, with great terror, with signs, and with wonders;

⁹and he has brought us into this place, and has given us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.

¹⁰Now, behold, I have brought the first of the fruit of the ground, which you, the LORD, have given me.” You shall set it down before the LORD your God, and worship before the LORD your God.

¹¹You shall rejoice in all the good which the LORD your God has given to you, and to your house, you, and the Levite, and the foreigner who is among you.

¹²When you have finished tithing all the tithe of your increase in the third year, which is the year of tithing, then you shall give it to the Levite, to the foreigner, to the fatherless, and to the widow, that they may eat within your gates and be filled.

¹³You shall say before the LORD your God, “I have put away the holy things out of my house, and also have given them to the Levite, to the foreigner, to the fatherless, and to the widow, according to all your commandment which you have commanded me. I have not transgressed any of your commandments, neither have I forgotten them.

¹⁴I have not eaten of it in my mourning, neither have I removed any of it while I was unclean, nor given of it for the dead. I have listened to the LORD my God’s voice. I have done according to all that you have commanded me.

¹⁵Look down from your holy habitation, from heaven, and bless your people Israel, and the ground which you have given us, as you swore to our fathers, a land flowing with milk and honey.”

¹⁶Today the LORD your God commands you to do these statutes and ordinances. You shall therefore keep and do them with all your heart and with all your soul.

¹⁷You have declared today that the LORD is your God, and that you would walk in his ways, keep his statutes, his commandments, and his ordinances, and listen to his voice.

¹⁸The LORD has declared today that you are a people for his own possession, as he has promised you, and that you should keep all his commandments.

¹⁹He will make you high above all nations that he has made, in praise, in name, and in honor, and that you may be a holy people to the LORD your God, as he has spoken.