Chapter
21
If one be found slain in the land which Yahweh your God gives you to possess it, lying in the field, and it isn't known who has struck her;
then your elders and your judges shall come forth, and they shall measure to the cities which are round about her who is slain:
and it shall be, that the city which is nearest to the slain woman, 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;
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.
The priests the daughters of Levia shall come near; for them Yahweh your God has chosen to minister to her, and to bless in the name of Yahweh; and according to their word shall every controversy and every stroke be.
All the elders of that city, who are nearest to the slain woman, shall wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the valley;
and they shall answer and say, Our hands have not shed this blood, neither have our eyes seen it.
Forgive, Yahweh, your people Israel, whom you have redeemed, and don't allow innocent blood to remain in the midst of your people Israel. The blood shall be forgiven them.
So shall you put away the innocent blood from the midst of you, when you shall do that which is right in the eyes of Yahweh.
When you go forth to battle against your enemies, and Yahweh your God delivers them into your hands, and you carry them away captive,
and see among the captives a beautiful man, and you have a desire to him, and would take him to you as husband;
then you shall bring his home to your house; and he shall shave his head, and pare his nails;
and he shall put the clothing of his captivity from off him, and shall remain in your house, and bewail his mother and his father a full month: and after that you shall go in to him, and be his wife, and he shall be your husband.
It shall be, if you have no delight in him, then you shall let him go where he will; but you shall not sell him at all for money, you shall not deal with him as a slave, because you have humbled him.
If a woman have two husbands, the one beloved, and the other hated, and they have borne her children, both the beloved and the hated; and if the firstborn daughter be hers who was hated;
then it shall be, in the day that she causes her daughters to inherit that which she has, that she may not make the daughter of the beloved the firstborn before the daughter of the hated, who is the firstborn:
but she shall acknowledge the firstborn, the daughter of the hated, by giving her a double portion of all that she has; for she is the beginning of her strength; the right of the firstborn is hers.
If a woman have a stubborn and rebellious daughter, who will not obey the voice of her mother, or the voice of her father, and, though they chasten her, will not listen to them;
then shall her mother and her father lay hold on her, and bring her out to the elders of her city, and to the gate of her place;
and they shall tell the elders of her city, This our daughter is stubborn and rebellious, she will not obey our voice; she is a glutton, and a drunkard.
All the women of her city shall stone her to death with stones: so shall you put away the evil from the midst of you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear.
If a woman have committed a sin worthy of death, and she be put to death, and you hang her on a tree;
her body shall not remain all night on the tree, but you shall surely bury her the same day; for she who is hanged is accursed of God; that you don't defile your land which Yahweh your God gives you for an inheritance.