Deuteronomy, starting at chapter 19
{19:1} When the LORD your God shall cut off the nations, whose land
the LORD your God gives you, and you succeed them, and dwell in their
cities, and in their houses; {19:2} you shall set apart three cities
for you in the midst of your land, which the LORD your God gives you
to possess it. {19:3} You shall prepare you the way, and divide the
borders of your land, which the LORD your God causes you to inherit,
into three parts, that every manslayer may flee there. {19:4} This is
the case of the manslayer, that shall flee there and live: whoever
kills his neighbor unawares, and didn't hate him in time past; {19:5}
as when a man goes into the forest with his neighbor to chop wood, and
his hand fetches a stroke with the axe to cut down the tree, and the
head slips from the handle, and lights on his neighbor, so that he
dies; he shall flee to one of these cities and live: {19:6} lest the
avenger of blood pursue the manslayer, while his heart is hot, and
overtake him, because the way is long, and strike him mortally;
whereas he was not worthy of death, inasmuch as he didn't hate him in
time past. {19:7} Therefore I command you, saying, You shall set apart
three cities for yourselves. {19:8} If 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; {19:9} if you keep all this
commandment to do it, which I command you this day, to love the LORD
your God, and to walk ever in his ways; then you shall add three
cities more for yourselves, besides these three: {19:10} that innocent
blood not be shed in the midst of your land, which the LORD your God
gives you for an inheritance, and so blood be on you. {19:11} But if
any man hates his neighbor, and lies in wait for him, and rises up
against him, and strikes him mortally so that he dies, and he flees
into one of these cities; {19:12} then 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. {19:13} Your eye shall not pity him, but
you shall put away the innocent blood from Israel, that it may go well
with you. {19:14} You 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 it.
{19:15} One witness shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity,
or for any sin, in any sin that he sins: at the mouth of two
witnesses, or at the mouth of three witnesses, shall a matter be
established. {19:16} If an unrighteous witness rise up against any man
to testify against him of wrongdoing, {19:17} then 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; {19:18} and the
judges shall make diligent inquisition: and, behold, if the witness is
a false witness, and has testified falsely against his brother;
{19:19} then you shall do to him as he had thought to do to his
brother: so you shall put away the evil from the midst of you. {19:20}
Those who remain shall hear, and fear, and shall henceforth commit no
more any such evil in the midst of you. {19:21} Your eyes shall not
pity: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot
for foot.
{20:1} When you go forth to battle against your enemies, and see
horses, chariots, and a people more than you, you shall not be afraid
of them; for the LORD your God is with you, who brought you up out of
the land of Egypt. {20:2} It shall be, when you draw near to the
battle, that the priest shall approach and speak to the people, {20:3}
and shall tell them, "Hear, Israel, you draw near this day to battle
against your enemies: don't let your heart faint; don't be afraid, nor
tremble, neither be scared of them; {20:4} for the LORD your God is he
who goes with you, to fight for you against your enemies, to save you."
{20:5} The 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. {20:6} What 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. {20:7} What man is
there who has pledged to be married 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." {20:8} The officers shall speak further to the people,
and they shall say, "What man is there who is fearful and
fainthearted? Let him go and return to his house, lest his brother's
heart melt as his heart." {20:9} It shall be, when the officers have
made an end of speaking to the people, that they shall appoint
captains of armies at the head of the people.
{20:10} When you draw near to a city to fight against it, then
proclaim peace to it. {20:11} It shall be, if it makes you answer of
peace, and opens to you, then it shall be, that all the people who are
found therein shall become tributary to you, and shall serve you.
{20:12} If it will make no peace with you, but will make war against
you, then you shall besiege it: {20:13} and when the LORD your God
delivers it into your hand, you shall strike every male of it with the
edge of the sword: {20:14} but the women, and the little ones, and the
livestock, and all that is in the city, even all its spoil, you shall
take for a prey to yourself; and you shall eat the spoil of your
enemies, which the LORD your God has given you. {20:15} Thus you shall
do to all the cities which are very far off from you, which are not of
the cities of these nations. {20:16} But of the cities of these
peoples, that the LORD your God gives you for an inheritance, you
shall save alive nothing that breathes; {20:17} but you shall utterly
destroy them: the Hittite, and the Amorite, the Canaanite, and the
Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite; as the LORD your God has
commanded you; {20:18} that they not teach you to do after all their
abominations, which they have done to their gods; so would you sin
against the LORD your God. {20:19} When 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 axe against them; for you may eat of them,
and you shall not cut them down; for is the tree of the field man,
that it should be besieged of you? {20:20} Only the trees of which you
know that they are not trees for food, you shall destroy and cut them
down; and you shall build bulwarks against the city that makes war
with you, until it fall.
{21:1} If one be found slain in the land which the LORD your God
gives you to possess it, lying in the field, and it isn't known who
has struck him; {21:2} then your elders and your judges shall come
forth, and they shall measure to the cities which are around him who
is slain: {21:3} and it shall be, that the city which is nearest to
the slain man, even the elders of that city shall take a heifer of the
herd, which hasn't been worked with, and which has not drawn in the
yoke; {21:4} and the elders of that city shall bring down the heifer
to a valley with running water, which is neither plowed nor sown, and
shall break the heifer's neck there in the valley. {21:5} The 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 name of the LORD; and
according to their word shall every controversy and every stroke be.
{21:6} All the elders of that city, who are nearest to the slain man,
shall wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the
valley; {21:7} and they shall answer and say, "Our hands have not shed
this blood, neither have our eyes seen it. {21:8} Forgive, the LORD,
your people Israel, whom you have redeemed, and don't allow innocent
blood in the midst of your people Israel." The blood shall be forgiven
them. {21:9} So you shall put away the innocent blood from the midst
of you, when you shall do that which is right in the eyes of the LORD.
{21:10} When you go forth to battle against your enemies, and the
LORD your God delivers them into your hands, and you carry them away
captive, {21:11} and see among the captives a beautiful woman, and you
have a desire to her, and would take her to you as wife; {21:12} then
you shall bring her home to your house; and she shall shave her head,
and pare her nails; {21:13} and she shall put the clothing of her
captivity from off her, and shall remain in your house, and bewail her
father and her mother a full month: and after that you shall go in to
her, and be her husband, and she shall be your wife. {21:14} It shall
be, if you have no delight in her, then you shall let her go where she
will; but you shall not sell her at all for money, you shall not deal
with her as a slave, because you have humbled her. {21:15} If a man
have 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 be hers who was hated; {21:16} then it shall be, in the
day that he causes his sons to inherit that which he has, that he may
not make the son of the beloved the firstborn before the son of the
hated, who is the firstborn: {21:17} but 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. {21:18} If a man have 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; {21:19} then
shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out to
the elders of his city, and to the gate of his place; {21:20} and they
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." {21:21} All the men of his city shall stone him to death
with stones: so you shall put away the evil from the midst of you; and
all Israel shall hear, and fear.
{21:22} If a man have committed a sin worthy of death, and he be put
to death, and you hang him on a tree; {21:23} his 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; that you don't defile
your land which the LORD your God gives you for an inheritance.
________________________________________________________________________
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