21
When no one knows who murdered someone
1 “Suppose someone has been murdered in a field in the land that Yahweh our God is giving to you, and you do not know who killed that person.
2 If that happens, your elders and judges must go out to where that person’s corpse was found and measure the distance from there to each of the nearby towns.
3 Then the elders in the town that is closest to where the corpse was found must select a young cow that has never been used for doing work.
4 They must take it to a place near a stream where the ground has never been plowed or planted. They must break its neck there in that valley.
5 The priests must go there also, because Yahweh our God has chosen them from the tribe of Levi to serve him and to be his representatives [MTY] when they bless people. And he has also chosen them to settle disputes in which someone has been injured.
6 The elders from the closest town must wash their hands over the young cow whose neck was broken,
7 and they must say, ‘We did not murder this person [MTY], and we did not see who did it.
8 Yahweh, forgive us, your Israeli people whom you rescued from Egypt. Do not consider ◄us to be guilty/that we should be punished because► of murdering someone who ◄is innocent/had not done something that is wrong►. Instead, forgive us.’
9 By doing that, you will be doing what Yahweh considers to be right, and you will not be considered to be guilty for murdering that person.”
The rule about marrying women who are captured
10 “When you soldiers go to fight against your enemies, and Yahweh our God enables you to defeat them [IDM], and ◄they become your prisoners/you capture them►,
11 one of you may see among them a beautiful woman that he likes, and he may want to marry her.
12 He should take her to his home, and there she must shave all the hair off her head and cut her fingernails to signify that now she does not belong to her people-group any more, but instead she is becoming an Israeli.
13 She must take off the clothes that she was wearing when she was captured, and put on Israeli clothes. She must stay in that man’s house and mourn for a month because of leaving her parents. After that, he will be allowed to marry her.
14 Later, if he no longer is pleased with her, he will be permitted to allow her to leave him. But because she was forced to have sex with him, he will not be allowed to treat her like a slave and sell her to someone else.”
The oldest son’s inheritance
15 “Suppose that a man has two wives, but he likes one of them and dislikes the other one. And suppose that they both give birth to sons, and the oldest son is the child of the woman that he does not like.
16 On the day when that man decides how he will divide his possessions for his sons to possess after he dies, he must not favor the son of the wife that he loves by giving him a bigger share, the share that the older son should receive.
17 He must give to the older son, the son of the wife whom he does not like, twice as much of his possessions. That son is his firstborn son, and he must be given the share that he should receive because of his being that man’s firstborn son.”
A rebellious son
18 “Suppose there is a boy who is very stubborn and always ◄rebelling against/disobeying► his parents, and who will not heed what they say to him. And suppose that they punish him but he still does not pay attention to what they tell him [MTY].
19 If that happens, his parents must take him to the ◄gate of/central meeting place in► the city where he lives and have him stand in front of the elders of the city.
20 Then the parents must say to the elders of that city, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and always rebelling against us. He will not pay attention to what we tell him [MTY]. He wastes a lot of money (OR, eats too much food) and gets drunk.’
21 Then all the elders of that city must execute him by throwing stones at him. By doing that, you will get rid of this evil practice among you. And everyone in Israel will hear about what happened and they will be afraid to do what he did.”
Burying criminals
22 “If someone is executed for having committed a crime for which he deserves to die, and you hang his corpse on a post,
23 you must not allow his corpse to remain there all night. You must bury it on the day that he died, because God has cursed anyone whose corpse is allowed to remain on a post. You must bury the corpse that day, in order that you do not defile the land that Yahweh our God is giving to you.”