Civil and Domestic Life

Chapter 22

⁵A woman must not put on man’s apparel, nor shall a man wear woman’s clothing; for whoever does these things is abhorrent to the Lord your God.

⁶If, along the road, you chance upon a bird’s nest, in any tree or on the ground, with fledglings or eggs and the mother sitting over the fledglings or on the eggs, do not take the mother together with her young. ⁷Let the mother go, and take only the young, in order that you may fare well and have a long life.

⁸When you build a new house, you shall make a parapet for your roof, so that you do not bring bloodguilt on your house if anyone should fall from it. [ . . . ]

¹⁰You shall not plow with an ox and an ass together. [ . . . ]

²²If a man is found lying with another man’s wife, both of them—the man and the woman with whom he lay—shall die. Thus you will sweep away evil from Israel.

²³In the case of a virgin who is ^aengaged to a man^a—if a man comes upon her in town and lies with her, ²⁴you shall take the two of them out to the gate of that town and stone them to death: the girl because she did not cry for help in the town, and the man because he violated another man’s wife. Thus you will sweep away evil from your midst. ²⁵But if the man comes upon the engaged girl in the open country, and the man lies with her by force, only the man who lay with her shall die, ²⁶but you shall do nothing to the girl. The girl did not incur the death penalty, for this case is like that of a man attacking another and murdering him. ²⁷He came upon her in the open; though the engaged girl cried for help, there was no one to save her.

²⁸If a man comes upon a virgin who is not engaged and he seizes her and lies with her, and they are discovered, ²⁹the man who lay with her shall pay the girl’s father fifty [shekels of] silver, and she shall be his wife. Because he has violated her, he can never have the right to divorce her.

Chapter 23

[ . . . ] ¹⁶You shall not turn over to his master a slave who seeks refuge with you from his master. ¹⁷He shall live with you in any place he may choose among the settlements in your midst, wherever he pleases; you must not ill-treat him.

¹⁸No Israelite woman shall be a cult prostitute, nor shall any Israelite man be a cult prostitute. ¹⁹You shall not bring the fee of a whore or the pay of a dog^b into the house of the Lord your God in fulfillment of any vow, for both are abhorrent to the Lord your God.

²⁰You shall not deduct interest from loans to your countrymen, whether in money or food or anything else that can be deducted as interest; ²¹but you may deduct interest from loans to foreigners. Do not deduct interest from loans to your countrymen, so that the Lord your God may bless you in all your undertakings in the land that you are about to enter and possess. [ . . . ]

²⁵When you enter another man’s vineyard, you may eat as many grapes as you want, until you are full, but you must not put any in your vessel. ²⁶When you enter another man’s field of standing grain, you may pluck ears with your hand; but you must not put a sickle to your neighbor’s grain.

Chapter 24

[ . . . ] ⁵When a man has taken a bride, he shall not go out with the army or be assigned to it for any purpose; he shall be exempt one year for the sake of his household, to give happiness to the woman he has married.

⁶A handmill or an upper millstone shall not be taken in pawn, for that would be taking someone’s life in pawn. [ . . . ]

¹⁰When you make a loan of any sort to your countryman, you must not enter his house to seize his pledge. ¹¹You must remain outside, while the man to whom you made the loan brings the pledge out to you. [ . . . ]

¹⁴You shall not abuse a needy and destitute laborer, whether a fellow countryman or a stranger in one of the communities of your land. ¹⁵You must pay him his wages on the same day, before the sun sets, for he is needy and urgently depends on it; else he will cry to the Lord against you and you will incur guilt.

¹⁶Parents shall not be put to death for children, nor children be put to death for parents: a person shall be put to death only for his own crime.

¹⁷You shall not subvert the rights of the stranger or the fatherless; you shall not take a widow’s garment in pawn. ¹⁸Remember that you were a slave in Egypt and that the Lord your God redeemed you from there; therefore do I enjoin you to observe this commandment.

¹⁹When you reap the harvest in your field and overlook a sheaf in the field, do not turn back to get it; it shall go to the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow—in order that the Lord your God may bless you in all your undertakings.

²⁰When you beat down the fruit of your olive trees, do not go over them again; that shall go to the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow. ²¹When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, do not pick it over again; that shall go to the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow. ²²Always remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt; therefore do I enjoin you to observe this commandment.

Chapter 25

¹When there is a dispute between men and they go to law, and a decision is rendered declaring the one in the right and the other in the wrong—²if the guilty one is to be flogged, the magistrate shall have him lie down and be given lashes in his presence, by count, as his guilt warrants. ³He may be given up to forty lashes, but not more, lest being flogged further, to excess, your brother be degraded before your eyes.

⁴You shall not muzzle an ox while it is threshing.

⁵When brothers dwell together and one of them dies and leaves no son, the wife of the deceased shall not be married to a stranger, outside the family. Her husband’s brother shall unite with her: he shall take her as his wife and perform the levir’s duty. ⁶The first son that she bears shall be accounted to the dead brother, that his name may not be blotted out in Israel. ⁷But if the man does not want to marry his brother’s widow, his brother’s widow shall appear before the elders in the gate and declare, “My husband’s brother refuses to establish a name in Israel for his brother; he will not perform the duty of a levir.” ⁸The elders of his town shall then summon him and talk to him. If he insists, saying, “I do not want to marry her,” ⁹his brother’s widow shall go up to him in the presence of the elders, pull the sandal off his foot, spit in his face, and make this declaration: Thus shall be done to the man who will not build up his brother’s house! ¹⁰And he shall go in Israel by the name of “the family of the unsandaled one.” [ . . . ]

¹³You shall not have in your pouch alternate weights, larger and smaller. ¹⁴You shall not have in your house alternate measures, a larger and a smaller. ¹⁵You must have completely honest weights and completely honest measures, if you are to endure long on the soil that the Lord your God is giving you. ¹⁶For everyone who does those things, everyone who deals dishonestly, is abhorrent to the Lord your God.