- Deuteronomy
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22
1 If you see someone's cow or sheep wandering around, don't just ignore it. Make sure you take it back to its owner. 2 If its owner doesn't live near you, or if you don't know who it is, take the animal home with you and keep it until the owner comes looking, then you can return it. 3 Do the same for whatever else you find that someone has lost—a donkey, a cloak, anything. Don't just ignore it. 4 If you see someone's donkey or cow that has fallen down on the road, don't just ignore it. Help lift it up.
5 A woman must not wear men's clothing, and a man must not wear women's clothing. Anyone who does this offends the Lord your God.
6 If you happen to find a bird's nest with chicks or eggs, whether it's in a tree or on the ground beside the road, and the mother is sitting on the chicks or eggs, don't take the mother with the young. 7 You may take the young, but make sure you let the mother go, so that you will do well and have a good long life.
8 When you build a new house, be sure to install a railing around your roof, so that you won't be held guilty if someone dies falling from it.
9 Don't plant your vineyard with another kind of crop. Otherwise everything you produce—the crop you planted and the fruit of your vineyard—must be dedicated to the Lord.*“To the Lord”: supplied for clarity.
10 Don't harness an ox and a donkey together when you plow.
11 Don't wear clothes made of wool and linen woven together.
12 Put tassels on the hem of the cloak you use to cover yourself.
13 It may happen that a man marries a woman and sleeps with her, but ends up hating her, 14 and accuses her of being immoral, giving her a bad name, saying, “I married this woman and slept with her, but I found out she wasn't a virgin.”
15 The woman's parents are to bring the proof of her virginity to the elders at the town gate, 16 and the father will explain to them, “I gave my daughter in marriage to this man, but he has ended up hating her. 17 Now he has accused her of being immoral, saying, ‘I found out that your daughter wasn't a virgin.’ But here's the proof of her virginity.” The parents shall spread out the sheet in front of the town elders.
18 Then the elders of that city shall take the man and punish†Probably by a public whipping. him. 19 They shall also fine him a hundred shekels of silver and give the money to the young woman's father, because this man has given an Israelite virgin a bad name. She is to remain his wife; he is not allowed to divorce her as long as he lives.
20 But if the accusation is true, and there's no proof of the woman's virginity, 21 she is to be taken to the door of her father's house, and there the men of her town are to stone her to death. She has done something disgraceful in Israel by acting immorally in her father's house. You must eliminate the evil from among you.
22 If a man is found sleeping with someone else's wife, both the man and the woman must die. You must eliminate the evil from Israel.
23 If a man meets a girl, a virgin engaged to another man, and sleeps with her there in the town, 24 then you must take both of them to the town gate and stone them to death. The young woman is guilty because she did not cry out for help in the town, and the man is guilty because he has brought shame on someone else's fiancée. You must eliminate the evil from among you.
25 However, if the man happens to meet a woman who is engaged out in the countryside, and he attacks her and rapes her, only the man has to die. 26 Don't do anything to the woman, because she has not committed a sin punishable by death. (This is the same kind of situation as when a man attacks someone else and murders them.) 27 When the man raped the woman who was engaged out in the countryside, she shouted out, but there wasn't anyone there to rescue her.
28 If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not engaged, and he grabs her and rapes her, and someone sees them, 29 the man must pay the woman's father fifty shekels of silver, and he must marry her because he has brought shame on her. He is not allowed to divorce her as long as he lives. 30 A man must not marry his father's wife, so that he won't bring shame on his father.

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*22:9 “To the Lord”: supplied for clarity.

†22:18 Probably by a public whipping.

© 2018 Dr. Jonathan Gallagher