¹If someone is found slain in the land which the LORD your God gives you to possess , lying in the field , and it isn’t known who has struck him ,

²then your elders and your judges shall come out , and they shall measure to the cities which are around him who is slain .

³It shall be that the elders of the city which is nearest to the slain man shall take a heifer of the herd , which hasn’t been worked with and which has not drawn in the yoke .

⁴The elders of that city shall bring the heifer down to a valley with running water, which is neither plowed nor sown , and shall break the heifer ’s neck there in the valley .

⁵The priests the sons of Levi shall come near , for them the LORD your God has chosen to minister to him , and to bless in the LORD ’s name ; and according to their word shall every controversy and every assault be decided .

⁶All the elders of that city which is nearest to the slain man shall wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the valley .

⁷They shall answer and say, “Our hands have not shed this blood , neither have our eyes seen it .

⁸Forgive , LORD , your people Israel , whom you have redeemed , and don’t allow innocent blood among your people Israel .” The blood shall be forgiven them .

⁹So you shall put away the innocent blood from among you , when you shall do that which is right in the LORD ’s eyes .

¹⁰When you go out to battle against your enemies , and the LORD your God delivers them into your hands and you carry them away captive ,

¹¹and see among the captives a beautiful woman, and you are attracted to her , and desire to take her as your wife,

¹²then you shall bring her home to your house . She shall shave her head and trim her nails .

¹³She shall take off the clothing of her captivity , and shall remain in your house , and bewail her father and her mother a full month . After that you shall go in to her and be her husband , and she shall be your wife.

¹⁴It shall be , if you have no delight in her , then you shall let her go where she desires ; but you shall not sell her at all for money . You shall not deal with her as a slave , because you have humbled her .

¹⁵If a man has two wives, the one beloved and the other hated , and they have borne him children , both the beloved and the hated , and if the firstborn son is hers who was hated ,

¹⁶then it shall be , in the day that he causes his sons to inherit that which he has , that he may not give the son of the beloved the rights of the firstborn before the son of the hated , who is the firstborn ;

¹⁷but he shall acknowledge the firstborn , the son of the hated , by giving him a double portion of all that he has ; for he is the beginning of his strength. The right of the firstborn is his .

¹⁸If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and though they chasten him , will not listen to them ,

¹⁹then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city and to the gate of his place .

²⁰They shall tell the elders of his city , “This our son is stubborn and rebellious . He will not obey our voice . He is a glutton and a drunkard.”

²¹All the men of his city shall stone him to death with stones. So you shall remove the evil from among you . All Israel shall hear , and fear .

²²If a man has committed a sin worthy of death , and he is put to death , and you hang him on a tree ,

²³his body shall not remain all night on the tree , but you shall surely bury him the same day ; for he who is hanged is accursed of God . Don’t defile your land which the LORD your God gives you for an inheritance .