Sermon Central
Deuteronomy 21-25
Atonement for an Unsolved Murder 1If someone is found slain, lying in a field in the land the LORD your God is giving you to possess, and it is not known who the killer was, 2your elders and judges shall go out and measure the distance from the body to the neighboring towns. 3Then the elders of the town nearest the body shall take a heifer that has never been worked and has never worn a yoke 4and lead it down to a valley that has not been plowed or planted and where there is a flowing stream. There in the valley they are to break the heifer’s neck. 5The Levitical priests shall step forward, for the LORD your God has chosen them to minister and to pronounce blessings in the name of the LORD and to decide all cases of dispute and assault. 6Then all the elders of the town nearest the body shall wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the valley, 7and they shall declare: “Our hands did not shed this blood, nor did our eyes see it done. 8Accept this atonement for your people Israel, whom you have redeemed, LORD, and do not hold your people guilty of the blood of an innocent person.” Then the bloodshed will be atoned for,
9and you will have purged from yourselves the guilt of shedding innocent blood, since you have done what is right in the eyes of the LORD .
Marrying a Captive Woman 10When you go to war against your enemies and the LORD your God delivers them into your hands and you take captives, 11if you notice among the captives a beautiful woman and are attracted to her, you may take her as your wife. 12Bring her into your home and have her shave her head, trim her nails 13and put aside the clothes she was wearing when captured. After she has lived in your house and mourned her father and mother for a full month, then you may go to her and be her husband and she shall be your wife.
14If you are not pleased with her, let her go wherever she wishes. You must not sell her or treat her as a slave, since you have dishonored her.
The Right of the Firstborn 15If a man has two wives, and he loves one but not the other, and both bear him sons but the firstborn is the son of the wife he does not love, 16when he wills his property to his sons, he must not give the rights of the firstborn to the son of the wife he loves in preference to his actual firstborn, the son of the wife he does not love.
17He must acknowledge the son of his unloved wife as the firstborn by giving him a double share of all he has. That son is the first sign of his father’s strength. The right of the firstborn belongs to him.
A Rebellious Son 18If someone has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, 19his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. 20They shall say to the elders, “This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.”
21Then all the men of his town are to stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid.
Various Laws 22If someone guilty of a capital offense is put to death and their body is exposed on a pole, 23you must not leave the body hanging on the pole overnight. Be sure to bury it that same day, because anyone who is hung on a pole is under God’s curse. You must not desecrate the land the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance.
1If you see your fellow Israelite’s ox or sheep straying, do not ignore it but be sure to take it back to its owner. 2If they do not live near you or if you do not know who owns it, take it home with you and keep it until they come looking for it. Then give it back.
3Do the same if you find their donkey or cloak or anything else they have lost. Do not ignore it.
4If you see your fellow Israelite’s donkey or ox fallen on the road, do not ignore it. Help the owner get it to its feet.
5A woman must not wear men’s clothing, nor a man wear women’s clothing, for the LORD your God detests anyone who does this. 6If you come across a bird’s nest beside the road, either in a tree or on the ground, and the mother is sitting on the young or on the eggs, do not take the mother with the young.
7You may take the young, but be sure to let the mother go, so that it may go well with you and you may have a long life.
8When you build a new house, make a parapet around your roof so that you may not bring the guilt of bloodshed on your house if someone falls from the roof.
9Do not plant two kinds of seed in your vineyard; if you do, not only the crops you plant but also the fruit of the vineyard will be defiled.
10Do not plow with an ox and a donkey yoked together.
11Do not wear clothes of wool and linen woven together.
12Make tassels on the four corners of the cloak you wear.
Marriage Violations 13If a man takes a wife and, after sleeping with her, dislikes her 14and slanders her and gives her a bad name, saying, “I married this woman, but when I approached her, I did not find proof of her virginity,” 15then the young woman’s father and mother shall bring to the town elders at the gate proof that she was a virgin. 16Her father will say to the elders, “I gave my daughter in marriage to this man, but he dislikes her. 17Now he has slandered her and said, ‘I did not find your daughter to be a virgin.’ But here is the proof of my daughter’s virginity.” Then her parents shall display the cloth before the elders of the town, 18and the elders shall take the man and punish him.
19They shall fine him a hundred shekels
21she shall be brought to the door of her father’s house and there the men of her town shall stone her to death. She has done an outrageous thing in Israel by being promiscuous while still in her father’s house. You must purge the evil from among you.
22If a man is found sleeping with another man’s wife, both the man who slept with her and the woman must die. You must purge the evil from Israel. 23If a man happens to meet in a town a virgin pledged to be married and he sleeps with her,
24you shall take both of them to the gate of that town and stone them to death—the young woman because she was in a town and did not scream for help, and the man because he violated another man’s wife. You must purge the evil from among you. 25But if out in the country a man happens to meet a young woman pledged to be married and rapes her, only the man who has done this shall die. 26Do nothing to the woman; she has committed no sin deserving death. This case is like that of someone who attacks and murders a neighbor,
27for the man found the young woman out in the country, and though the betrothed woman screamed, there was no one to rescue her. 28If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered,
29he shall pay her father fifty shekels
Exclusion From the Assembly
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2No one born of a forbidden marriage
6Do not seek a treaty of friendship with them as long as you live. 7Do not despise an Edomite, for the Edomites are related to you. Do not despise an Egyptian, because you resided as foreigners in their country.
8The third generation of children born to them may enter the assembly of the LORD .
Uncleanness in the Camp 9When you are encamped against your enemies, keep away from everything impure. 10If one of your men is unclean because of a nocturnal emission, he is to go outside the camp and stay there.
11But as evening approaches he is to wash himself, and at sunset he may return to the camp. 12Designate a place outside the camp where you can go to relieve yourself. 13As part of your equipment have something to dig with, and when you relieve yourself, dig a hole and cover up your excrement.
14For the LORD your God moves about in your camp to protect you and to deliver your enemies to you. Your camp must be holy, so that he will not see among you anything indecent and turn away from you.
Miscellaneous Laws 15If a slave has taken refuge with you, do not hand them over to their master.
16Let them live among you wherever they like and in whatever town they choose. Do not oppress them. 17No Israelite man or woman is to become a shrine prostitute.
18You must not bring the earnings of a female prostitute or of a male prostitute
20You may charge a foreigner interest, but not a fellow Israelite, so that the LORD your God may bless you in everything you put your hand to in the land you are entering to possess. 21If you make a vow to the LORD your God, do not be slow to pay it, for the LORD your God will certainly demand it of you and you will be guilty of sin. 22But if you refrain from making a vow, you will not be guilty.
23Whatever your lips utter you must be sure to do, because you made your vow freely to the LORD your God with your own mouth. 24If you enter your neighbor’s vineyard, you may eat all the grapes you want, but do not put any in your basket. 25If you enter your neighbor’s grainfield, you may pick kernels with your hands, but you must not put a sickle to their standing grain.
1If a man marries a woman who becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house, 2and if after she leaves his house she becomes the wife of another man, 3and her second husband dislikes her and writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house, or if he dies,
4then her first husband, who divorced her, is not allowed to marry her again after she has been defiled. That would be detestable in the eyes of the LORD . Do not bring sin upon the land the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance.
5If a man has recently married, he must not be sent to war or have any other duty laid on him. For one year he is to be free to stay at home and bring happiness to the wife he has married.
6Do not take a pair of millstones—not even the upper one—as security for a debt, because that would be taking a person’s livelihood as security.
7If someone is caught kidnapping a fellow Israelite and treating or selling them as a slave, the kidnapper must die. You must purge the evil from among you.
8In cases of defiling skin diseases,
9Remember what the LORD your God did to Miriam along the way after you came out of Egypt. 10When you make a loan of any kind to your neighbor, do not go into their house to get what is offered to you as a pledge. 11Stay outside and let the neighbor to whom you are making the loan bring the pledge out to you. 12If the neighbor is poor, do not go to sleep with their pledge in your possession.
13Return their cloak by sunset so that your neighbor may sleep in it. Then they will thank you, and it will be regarded as a righteous act in the sight of the LORD your God. 14Do not take advantage of a hired worker who is poor and needy, whether that worker is a fellow Israelite or a foreigner residing in one of your towns.
15Pay them their wages each day before sunset, because they are poor and are counting on it. Otherwise they may cry to the LORD against you, and you will be guilty of sin.
16Parents are not to be put to death for their children, nor children put to death for their parents; each will die for their own sin. 17Do not deprive the foreigner or the fatherless of justice, or take the cloak of the widow as a pledge.
18Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and the LORD your God redeemed you from there. That is why I command you to do this. 19When you are harvesting in your field and you overlook a sheaf, do not go back to get it. Leave it for the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow, so that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. 20When you beat the olives from your trees, do not go over the branches a second time. Leave what remains for the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow. 21When you harvest the grapes in your vineyard, do not go over the vines again. Leave what remains for the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow. 22Remember that you were slaves in Egypt. That is why I command you to do this.
1When people have a dispute, they are to take it to court and the judges will decide the case, acquitting the innocent and condemning the guilty. 2If the guilty person deserves to be beaten, the judge shall make them lie down and have them flogged in his presence with the number of lashes the crime deserves,
3but the judge must not impose more than forty lashes. If the guilty party is flogged more than that, your fellow Israelite will be degraded in your eyes.
4Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain. 5If brothers are living together and one of them dies without a son, his widow must not marry outside the family. Her husband’s brother shall take her and marry her and fulfill the duty of a brother-in-law to her.
6The first son she bears shall carry on the name of the dead brother so that his name will not be blotted out from Israel. 7However, if a man does not want to marry his brother’s wife, she shall go to the elders at the town gate and say, “My husband’s brother refuses to carry on his brother’s name in Israel. He will not fulfill the duty of a brother-in-law to me.” 8Then the elders of his town shall summon him and talk to him. If he persists in saying, “I do not want to marry her,” 9his brother’s widow shall go up to him in the presence of the elders, take off one of his sandals, spit in his face and say, “This is what is done to the man who will not build up his brother’s family line.”
10That man’s line shall be known in Israel as The Family of the Unsandaled. 11If two men are fighting and the wife of one of them comes to rescue her husband from his assailant, and she reaches out and seizes him by his private parts,
12you shall cut off her hand. Show her no pity. 13Do not have two differing weights in your bag—one heavy, one light. 14Do not have two differing measures in your house—one large, one small. 15You must have accurate and honest weights and measures, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you.
16For the LORD your God detests anyone who does these things, anyone who deals dishonestly. 17Remember what the Amalekites did to you along the way when you came out of Egypt. 18When you were weary and worn out, they met you on your journey and attacked all who were lagging behind; they had no fear of God. 19When the LORD your God gives you rest from all the enemies around you in the land he is giving you to possess as an inheritance, you shall blot out the name of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget!