Deuteronomy 21

If one slain is found in the land that God your God is giving to you to possess it, fallen in the field, {and} it is not known who has struck him,

then your elders and your judges shall go out, and they shall measure to the cities that surround the slain. \*

And it will be, the town nearest to the slain, and the elders of that town shall take a heifer of the herd, one that has not been put to work, which has not drawn a yoke.

And the elders of that city shall cause the heifer to descend to a valley with running water, that has not been worked in, nor sown, and there they shall break the neck of the heifer in the valley. \*

And the priests, the sons of Levi, shall come forward, for God your God has chosen them to serve him and give blessing in the name of God, and upon their mouth is every dispute and every assault. \*

And all the elders of that city, the nearest one to the slain, shall wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the valley,

and they shall respond and say, ‘Our hands have not spilled this blood, and our eyes have not seen. \*

Cover, God, your people Israel, whom you have redeemed, and do not put the blood of the innocent in the midst of your people Israel.’ And the blood will be covered for them.

And you shall remove the blood of the innocent from your midst, when you do right in the eyes of God. \*

When you go out to battle against your enemies, and God your God gives them into your hands and you take its captive captive,

and you see among the captives a woman of beautiful form, and you desire her and take for yourself as a wife,

then you shall bring her to the midst of your house. And she shall shave her head and do her nails, \*

and she shall remove the clothes of her captivity from upon her, and she shall live in your house and weep {for} her father and her mother a month of days. And afterwards, you shall go in to her and marry her, and she shall be your wife.

And it will be, if you do not delight in her, then you shall send her to her desires, but you surely shall not sell her for money, you shall not mistreat her in return for humiliating her. \*

If a man has two wives, one loved and one hated, and they have borne him sons, the loved and the hated, and it happens that the firstborn son {is} of the hated,

then it will be, on the day he causes his sons to inherit what he has, he shall not {make} the son of the beloved as the firstborn upon the face of the son of the hated, the firstborn.

But, he shall recognize the firstborn, the son of the hated, giving to him a double portion of all that is found of his; for he {is} the beginning of his strength; the regulation of the firstborn {is} his. \*

If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not listen to the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and they chastise him, but he will not listen to them,

then his father and his mother shall seize him and bring him to the elders of his city and to the gate of his place. \*

And they shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This son of ours {is} stubborn and rebellious; he will not listen to our voice; {he is} a glutton and a drunkard.’

And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, and he shall die; and you shall remove the evil from among you. And all Israel will hear and fear. \*

And if a man has sinned, a judgment of {which is} death and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree,

his corpse shall not remain on the tree. Instead, you shall surely bury him that day; for cursed of God {is} a hanged man. And you shall not defile your land that God your God is giving to you {as} an inheritance. \*