Deuteronomy - Chapter 22

¹ 'If you see your brother's ox or one of his sheep straying, you must not disregard it: you must take it back to your brother.

² And if he is not close at hand or you do not know who he is, you must take it home with you and keep it by you until your brother comes to look for it; you will then return it to him.

³ 'You must do the same with his donkey, the same with his cloak, the same with anything that your brother loses and that you find; you must not disregard it.

⁴ 'If you see your brother's donkey or ox fall over on the road, you must not disregard it, but must help your brother get it on its feet again.

⁵ 'A woman must not dress like a man, nor a man like a woman; anyone who does this is detestable to Yahweh your God.

⁶ 'If, when out walking, you come across a bird's nest, in a tree or on the ground, with chicks or eggs and the mother bird sitting on the chicks or the eggs, you must not take the mother as well as the chicks.

⁷ Let the mother go; the young you may take for yourself. Thus will you have prosperity and long life.

⁸ 'When you build a new house, you must give your roof a parapet; then your house will not incur blood-vengeance, should anyone fall off the top.

⁹ 'You must not sow any other crop in your vineyard, or the whole yield may become forfeit, both the crop you have sown and the yield of your vines.

¹⁰ 'You must not plough with ox and donkey together.

¹¹ 'You must not wear clothing woven part of wool, part of linen.

¹² 'You must make tassels for the four corners of the cloak in which you wrap yourself.

¹³ 'If a man marries a woman, has sexual intercourse with her and then, turning against her,

¹⁴ taxes her with misconduct and publicly defames her by saying, "I married this woman and when I had sexual intercourse with her I did not find evidence of her virginity,"

¹⁵ the girl's father and mother must take the evidence of her virginity and produce it before the elders of the town, at the gate.

¹⁶ To the elders, the girl's father will say, "I gave this man my daughter for a wife and he has turned against her,

¹⁷ and now he taxes her with misconduct, saying, I have found no evidence of virginity in your daughter. Here is the evidence of my daughter's virginity!"

¹⁸ They must then display the cloth to the elders of the town.

¹⁹ The elders of the town in question will have the man arrested and flogged, and fine him a hundred silver shekels for publicly defaming a virgin of Israel, and give this money to the girl's father. She will remain his wife; as long as he lives, he may not divorce her.

²⁰ 'But if the accusation that the girl cannot show evidence of virginity is substantiated,

²¹ she must be taken out, and at the door of her father's house her fellow-citizens must stone her to death for having committed an infamy in Israel by bringing disgrace on her father's family. You must banish this evil from among you.

²² 'If a man is caught having sexual intercourse with another man's wife, both must be put to death: the man who has slept with her and the woman herself. You must banish this evil from Israel.

²³ 'If a virgin is engaged to a man, and another man encounters her in the town and has sexual intercourse with her,

²⁴ you will take them both to the gate of the town in question and stone them to death: the girl, for not having called for help in the town; the man, for having exploited his fellow-citizen's wife. You must banish this evil from among you.

²⁵ But if the man ran into the betrothed girl in the open country and slept with her, having taken her by force, her ravisher alone must die;

²⁶ you must do nothing to the girl, she has not committed a capital offence. The case is like that of a man who attacks and kills his fellow:

²⁷ since he came across her in the open country, the betrothed girl may have called out, without anyone's coming to her rescue.

²⁸ 'If a man meets a young virgin who is not betrothed and seizes her, sleeps with her and is caught in the act,

²⁹ her ravisher must give the girl's father fifty silver shekels; since he has exploited her, she must be his wife and, as long as he lives, he may not divorce her.'

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