Atonement for an Unsolved Murder

1If one slain is found in the land that YHWH your God is giving you to possess, lying in the field, and it is not known who killed him, 2then your elders and your judges shall go out and measure to the cities that are surrounding the slain one.

3And it shall be that the city nearest to the slain man, the elders of that city will take a heifer of the herd, which has not been worked in it and which has not pulled with a yoke, 4and the elders of that city shall bring down the heifer to an enduring valley, which neither is plowed nor sown, and they shall break the neck there of the heifer in the valley.

5And the priests, the sons of Levi, shall come near; for YHWH your God has chosen them to serve and to bless in the name of YHWH, and by their mouth shall be settled every controversy and every assault. 6And all the elders of that city nearest to the slain one shall wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the valley, 7and they shall answer and say, “Our hands have not shed this blood, and our eyes have not seen it. 8Receive atonement for Your people Israel, whom You have redeemed, O YHWH, and lay not innocent blood in the midst of Your people Israel.”

And for the blood atonement shall be provided to them. 9And you shall remove the innocent blood out of your midst when you do right in the eyes of YHWH.

Marrying a Captive Woman

10When you go out to war against your enemies, and YHWH your God delivers them into your hand, and you have taken captive its captivity, 11and you see among the captives a woman beautiful in appearance, and you have delighted in her and would take her as your wife, 12you shall bring her into the midst of your household, and she shall shave her head and trim her nails, 13and she shall remove the clothes of her captivity from her and remain in your house and mourn her father and her mother a full month.

And after that you may go in to her and be her husband, and she shall be to you wife. 14And it shall be, if you have no delight in her, that you send her away at her desire. And surely you shall not sell her for silver, nor shall you treat her brutally, upon that you have humbled her.

Inheritance Rights of the Firstborn

15If a man has two wives, one loved and one hated, and they have borne to him sons, the loved and the hated, and the firstborn son is to the hated one, 16then it shall come to pass on the day he assigns his inheritance to his sons that are to him, that he must not bestow firstborn status on the son of the loved wife over the face of the son of the hated one, the firstborn.

17But the firstborn son of the hated wife he shall acknowledge by giving him a double portion of all that is found to him, for he is the beginning of his strength; to him is the right of the firstborn.

A Rebellious Son
(Luke 15:11–32)

18If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not listen to the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and they have disciplined him and he 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 city, 20and they shall say to the elders of his city, “Our son, this one, is stubborn and rebellious; he will not listen to our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.”

21And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones to death; and you shall put away the evil from among you,† and all Israel shall listen and fear.

Cursed Is Anyone Hung on a Tree

22And if a man has committed a sin deserving of death, and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree,† 23his body shall not remain overnight on the tree, but you shall surely bury him on the day—for cursed of God is he who is hanged on a tree†—so that you do not defile the land that YHWH your God is giving to you as an inheritance.