New International Version  
Chapter 20
Going to War
1When you go to war against your enemies and see horses and chariots and an army greater than yours, do not be afraid of them, because the LORD your God, who brought you up out of Egypt, will be with you.
2When you are about to go into battle, the priest shall come forward and address the army.
3He shall say: “Hear, O Israel, today you are going into battle against your enemies. Do not be fainthearted or afraid; do not be terrified or give way to panic before them.
4For the LORD your God is the one who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to give you victory.”
5The officers shall say to the army: “Has anyone built a new house and not dedicated it? Let him go home, or he may die in battle and someone else may dedicate it.
6Has anyone planted a vineyard and not begun to enjoy it? Let him go home, or he may die in battle and someone else enjoy it.
7Has anyone become pledged to a woman and not married her? Let him go home, or he may die in battle and someone else marry her.”
8Then the officers shall add, “Is any man afraid or fainthearted? Let him go home so that his brothers will not become disheartened too.”
9When the officers have finished speaking to the army, they shall appoint commanders over it.
10When you march up to attack a city, make its people an offer of peace.
11If they accept and open their gates, all the people in it shall be subject to forced labor and shall work for you.
12If they refuse to make peace and they engage you in battle, lay siege to that city.
13When the LORD your God delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the men in it.
14As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves. And you may use the plunder the LORD your God gives you from your enemies.
15This is how you are to treat all the cities that are at a distance from you and do not belong to the nations nearby.
16However, in the cities of the nations the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes.
17Completely destroyThe Hebrew term refers to the irrevocable giving over of things or persons to the LORD, often by totally destroying them. them—the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites—as the LORD your God has commanded you.
18Otherwise, they will teach you to follow all the detestable things they do in worshiping their gods, and you will sin against the LORD your God.
19When you lay siege to a city for a long time, fighting against it to capture it, do not destroy its trees by putting an ax to them, because you can eat their fruit. Do not cut them down. Are the trees of the field people, that you should besiege them?Or down to use in the siege, for the fruit trees are for the benefit of man.
20However, you may cut down trees that you know are not fruit trees and use them to build siege works until the city at war with you falls.
Chapter 21
Atonement for an Unsolved Murder
1If a man is found slain, lying in a field in the land the LORD your God is giving you to possess, and it is not known who killed him,
2your elders and judges shall go out and measure the distance from the body to the neighboring towns.
3Then the elders of the town nearest the body shall take a heifer that has never been worked and has never worn a yoke
4and lead her down to a valley that has not been plowed or planted and where there is a flowing stream. There in the valley they are to break the heifer's neck.
5The priests, the sons of Levi, shall step forward, for the LORD your God has chosen them to minister and to pronounce blessings in the name of the LORD and to decide all cases of dispute and assault.
6Then all the elders of the town nearest the body shall wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the valley,
7and they shall declare: “Our hands did not shed this blood, nor did our eyes see it done.
8Accept this atonement for your people Israel, whom you have redeemed, O LORD, and do not hold your people guilty of the blood of an innocent man.” And the bloodshed will be atoned for.
9So you will purge from yourselves the guilt of shedding innocent blood, since you have done what is right in the eyes of the LORD.
Marrying a Captive Woman
10When you go to war against your enemies and the LORD your God delivers them into your hands and you take captives,
11if you notice among the captives a beautiful woman and are attracted to her, you may take her as your wife.
12Bring her into your home and have her shave her head, trim her nails
13and put aside the clothes she was wearing when captured. After she has lived in your house and mourned her father and mother for a full month, then you may go to her and be her husband and she shall be your wife.
14If you are not pleased with her, let her go wherever she wishes. You must not sell her or treat her as a slave, since you have dishonored her.
The Right of the Firstborn
15If a man has two wives, and he loves one but not the other, and both bear him sons but the firstborn is the son of the wife he does not love,
16when he wills his property to his sons, he must not give the rights of the firstborn to the son of the wife he loves in preference to his actual firstborn, the son of the wife he does not love.
17He must acknowledge the son of his unloved wife as the firstborn by giving him a double share of all he has. That son is the first sign of his father's strength. The right of the firstborn belongs to him.
A Rebellious Son
18If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him,
19his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town.
20They shall say to the elders, “This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a profligate and a drunkard.”
21Then all the men of his town shall stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid.
Various Laws
22If a man guilty of a capital offense is put to death and his body is hung on a tree,
23you must not leave his body on the tree overnight. Be sure to bury him that same day, because anyone who is hung on a tree is under God's curse. You must not desecrate the land the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance.
Chapter 22
1If you see your brother's ox or sheep straying, do not ignore it but be sure to take it back to him.
2If the brother does not live near you or if you do not know who he is, take it home with you and keep it until he comes looking for it. Then give it back to him.
3Do the same if you find your brother's donkey or his cloak or anything he loses. Do not ignore it.
4If you see your brother's donkey or his ox fallen on the road, do not ignore it. Help him get it to its feet.
5A woman must not wear men's clothing, nor a man wear women's clothing, for the LORD your God detests anyone who does this.
6If you come across a bird's nest beside the road, either in a tree or on the ground, and the mother is sitting on the young or on the eggs, do not take the mother with the young.
7You may take the young, but be sure to let the mother go, so that it may go well with you and you may have a long life.
8When you build a new house, make a parapet around your roof so that you may not bring the guilt of bloodshed on your house if someone falls from the roof.
9Do not plant two kinds of seed in your vineyard; if you do, not only the crops you plant but also the fruit of the vineyard will be defiled.Or be forfeited to the sanctuary
10Do not plow with an ox and a donkey yoked together.
11Do not wear clothes of wool and linen woven together.
12Make tassels on the four corners of the cloak you wear.
Marriage Violations
13If a man takes a wife and, after lying with her, dislikes her
14and slanders her and gives her a bad name, saying, “I married this woman, but when I approached her, I did not find proof of her virginity,”
15then the girl's father and mother shall bring proof that she was a virgin to the town elders at the gate.
16The girl's father will say to the elders, “I gave my daughter in marriage to this man, but he dislikes her.
17Now he has slandered her and said, ‘I did not find your daughter to be a virgin.’ But here is the proof of my daughter's virginity.” Then her parents shall display the cloth before the elders of the town,
18and the elders shall take the man and punish him.
19They shall fine him a hundred shekels of silverThat is, about 2 1/2 pounds (about 1 kilogram) and give them to the girl's father, because this man has given an Israelite virgin a bad name. She shall continue to be his wife; he must not divorce her as long as he lives.
20If, however, the charge is true and no proof of the girl's virginity can be found,
21she shall be brought to the door of her father's house and there the men of her town shall stone her to death. She has done a disgraceful thing in Israel by being promiscuous while still in her father's house. You must purge the evil from among you.
22If a man is found sleeping with another man's wife, both the man who slept with her and the woman must die. You must purge the evil from Israel.
23If a man happens to meet in a town a virgin pledged to be married and he sleeps with her,
24you shall take both of them to the gate of that town and stone them to death—the girl because she was in a town and did not scream for help, and the man because he violated another man's wife. You must purge the evil from among you.
25But if out in the country a man happens to meet a girl pledged to be married and rapes her, only the man who has done this shall die.
26Do nothing to the girl; she has committed no sin deserving death. This case is like that of someone who attacks and murders his neighbor,
27for the man found the girl out in the country, and though the betrothed girl screamed, there was no one to rescue her.
28If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered,
29he shall pay the girl's father fifty shekels of silver.That is, about 1 1/4 pounds (about 0.6 kilogram) He must marry the girl, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives.
30A man is not to marry his father's wife; he must not dishonor his father's bed.

LOADING .......