Deuteronomy 23:1-25:19

Persons Excluded from the Assembly

23 “No one who is ^[a]emasculated or has his male organ cut off shall enter the assembly of the Lord. ² No one of illegitimate birth shall enter the assembly of the Lord; none of his descendants, even to the tenth generation, shall enter the assembly of the Lord. ³ No Ammonite or Moabite shall enter the assembly of the Lord; none of their descendants, even to the tenth generation, shall ever enter the assembly of the Lord, ⁴ because they did not meet you with ^[b]food and water on the way when you came out of Egypt, and because they hired against you Balaam the son of Beor from Pethor of ^[c]Mesopotamia, to curse you. ⁵ Nevertheless, the Lord your God was not willing to listen to Balaam, but the Lord your God turned the curse into a blessing for you because the Lord your God loves you. ⁶ You shall never seek their peace or their prosperity all your days.

⁷ “You shall not detest an Edomite, for he is your brother; you shall not detest an Egyptian, because you were an alien in his land. ⁸ The sons of the third generation who are born to them may enter the assembly of the Lord.

⁹ “When you go out as ^[d]an army against your enemies, you shall keep yourself from every evil thing.

¹⁰ “If there is among you any man who is unclean because of a nocturnal emission, then he must go outside the camp; he may not ^[e]reenter the camp. ¹¹ But it shall be when evening approaches, he shall bathe himself with water, and at sundown he may ^[f]reenter the camp.

¹² “You shall also have a place outside the camp and go out there, ¹³ and you shall have a ^[g]spade among your tools, and it shall be when you sit down outside, you shall dig with it and shall turn ^[h]to cover up your excrement. ¹⁴ Since the Lord your God walks in the midst of your camp to deliver you and to ^[i]defeat your enemies before you, therefore your camp must be holy; and He must not see ^[j]anything indecent among you ^[k]or He will turn away from you.

¹⁵ “You shall not hand over to his master a slave who has ^[l]escaped from his master to you. ¹⁶ He shall live with you in your midst, in the place which he shall choose in one of your ^[m]towns where it pleases him; you shall not mistreat him.

¹⁷ “None of the daughters of Israel shall be a cult prostitute, nor shall any of the sons of Israel be a cult prostitute. ¹⁸ You shall not bring the hire of a harlot or the wages of a ^[n]dog into the house of the Lord your God for any votive offering, for both of these are an abomination to the Lord your God.

¹⁹ “You shall not charge interest to your ^[o]countrymen: interest on money, food, or anything that may be loaned at interest. ²⁰ You may charge interest to a foreigner, but to your ^[p]countrymen you shall not charge interest, so that the Lord your God may bless you in all ^[q]that you undertake in the land which you are about to enter to ^[r]possess.

²¹ “When you make a vow to the Lord your God, you shall not delay to pay it, for it would be sin in you, ^[s]and the Lord your God will surely require it of you. ²² However, if you refrain from vowing, it would not be sin in you. ²³ You shall be careful to perform what goes out from your lips, just as you have voluntarily vowed to the Lord your God, what you have ^[t]promised.

²⁴ “When you enter your neighbor’s vineyard, then you may eat grapes ^[u]until you are fully satisfied, but you shall not put any in your ^[v]basket.

²⁵ “When you enter your neighbor’s standing grain, then you may pluck the heads with your hand, but you shall not wield a sickle in your neighbor’s standing grain.

Law of Divorce

24 “When a man takes a wife and marries her, and it happens ^[w]that she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out from his house, ² and she leaves his house and goes and becomes another man’s wife, ³ and if the latter husband ^[x]turns against her and writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, or if the latter husband dies who took her to be his wife, ⁴ then her former husband who sent her away is not allowed to take her again to be his wife, since she has been defiled; for that is an abomination before the Lord, and you shall not bring sin on the land which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance.

⁵ “When a man takes a new wife, he shall not go out with the army nor be charged with any duty; he shall be free at home one year and shall give happiness to his wife whom he has taken.

Sundry Laws

⁶ “No one shall take a handmill or an upper millstone in pledge, for he would be taking a life in pledge.

⁷ “If a man is ^[y]caught kidnapping any of his ^[z]countrymen of the sons of Israel, and he deals with him violently or sells him, then that thief shall die; so you shall purge the evil from among you.

⁸ “Be careful against ^[aa]an infection of leprosy, that you diligently observe and do according to all that the Levitical priests teach you; as I have commanded them, so you shall be careful to do. ⁹ Remember what the Lord your God did to Miriam on the way as you came out of Egypt.

¹⁰ “When you make your neighbor a loan of any sort, you shall not enter his house to take his pledge. ¹¹ You shall remain outside, and the man to whom you make the loan shall bring the pledge out to you. ¹² If he is a poor man, you shall not sleep with his pledge. ¹³ When the sun goes down you shall surely return the pledge to him, that he may sleep in his cloak and bless you; and it will be righteousness for you before the Lord your God.

¹⁴ “You shall not oppress a hired servant who is poor and needy, whether he is one of your ^[ab]countrymen or one of your aliens who is in your land in your ^[ac]towns. ¹⁵ You shall give him his wages on his day ^[ad]before the sun sets, for he is poor and sets his ^[ae]heart on it; so that he will not cry against you to the Lord and it become sin in you.

¹⁶ “Fathers shall not be put to death ^[af]for their sons, nor shall sons be put to death ^[ag]for their fathers; everyone shall be put to death for his own sin.

¹⁷ “You shall not pervert the justice ^[ah]due an alien or ^[ai]an orphan, nor take a widow’s garment in pledge. ¹⁸ But you shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt, and that the Lord your God redeemed you from there; therefore I am commanding you to do this thing.

¹⁹ “When you reap your harvest in your field and have forgotten a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to get it; it shall be for the alien, for the ^[aj]orphan, and for the widow, in order that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. ²⁰ When you beat your olive tree, you shall not go over the boughs ^[ak]again; it shall be for the alien, for the ^[al]orphan, and for the widow.

²¹ “When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, you shall not ^[am]go over it again; it shall be for the alien, for the ^[an]orphan, and for the widow. ²² You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt; therefore I am commanding you to do this thing.

Sundry Laws

25 “If there is a dispute between men and they go to ^[ao]court, and ^[ap]the judges decide their case, and they justify the righteous and condemn the wicked, ² then it shall be if the wicked man ^[aq]deserves to be beaten, the judge shall then make him lie down and be beaten in his presence with the number of stripes according to his ^[ar]guilt. ³ He may beat him forty times but no more, so that he does not beat him with many more stripes than these and your brother is not degraded in your eyes.

⁴ “You shall not muzzle the ox while he is threshing.

⁵ “When brothers live together and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of the deceased shall not be married outside the family to a strange man. Her husband’s brother shall go in to her and take her to himself as wife and perform the duty of a husband’s brother to her. ⁶ It shall be that the firstborn whom she bears shall ^[as]assume the name of his dead brother, so that his name will not be blotted out from Israel. ⁷ But if the man does not desire to take his brother’s wife, then his brother’s wife shall go up to the gate to the elders and say, ‘My husband’s brother refuses to establish a name for his brother in Israel; he is not willing to perform the duty of a husband’s brother to me.’ ⁸ Then the elders of his city shall summon him and speak to him. And if he persists and says, ‘I do not desire to take her,’ ⁹ then his brother’s wife shall come to him in the sight of the elders, and pull his sandal off his foot and spit in his face; and she shall ^[at]declare, ‘Thus it is done to the man who does not build up his brother’s house.’ ¹⁰ In Israel his name shall be called, ‘The house of him whose sandal is removed.’

¹¹ “If two men, a man and his ^[au]countryman, are struggling together, and the wife of one comes near to deliver her husband from the hand of the one who is striking him, and puts out her hand and seizes his genitals, ¹² then you shall cut off her ^[av]hand; ^[aw]you shall not show pity.

¹³ “You shall not have in your bag ^[ax]differing weights, a large and a small. ¹⁴ You shall not have in your house ^[ay]differing measures, a large and a small. ¹⁵ You shall have a full and just weight; you shall have a full and just ^[az]measure, that your days may be prolonged in the ^[ba]land which the Lord your God gives you. ¹⁶ For everyone who does these things, everyone who acts unjustly is an abomination to the Lord your God.

¹⁷ “Remember what Amalek did to you along the way when you came out from Egypt, ¹⁸ how he met you along the way and attacked among you all the stragglers at your rear when you were faint and weary; and he did not ^[bb]fear God. ¹⁹ Therefore it shall come about when the Lord your God has given you rest from all your surrounding enemies, in the land which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance to ^[bc]possess, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven; you must not forget.