Observe the month Abib and keep the Passover to the Lord your God, for in that month he brought you out of Egypt by night.

You must sacrifice the Passover animal (from the flock or the herd) to the Lord your God in the place where he chooses to locate his name.

You must not eat any yeast with it; for seven days you must eat bread made without yeast, symbolic of affliction, for you came out of Egypt hurriedly. You must do this so you will remember for the rest of your life the day you came out of the land of Egypt.

There must not be a scrap of yeast within your land for seven days, nor can any of the meat you sacrifice on the evening of the first day remain until the next morning.

You may not sacrifice the Passover in just any of your villages that the Lord your God is giving you,

but you must sacrifice it in the evening in the place where he chooses to locate his name, at sunset, the time of day you came out of Egypt.

You must cook and eat it in the place the Lord your God chooses; you may return the next morning to your tents.

You must eat bread made without yeast for six days. The seventh day you are to hold an assembly for the Lord your God; you must not do any work on that day.

Then you are to celebrate the Festival of Weeks before the Lord your God with the voluntary offering that you will bring, in proportion to how he has blessed you.

You shall rejoice before him -- you, your son, your daughter, your male and female slaves, the Levites in your villages, the resident foreigners, the orphans, and the widows among you -- in the place where the Lord chooses to locate his name.

Furthermore, remember that you were a slave in Egypt, and so be careful to observe these statutes.

You are to rejoice in your festival, you, your son, your daughter, your male and female slaves, the Levites, the resident foreigners, the orphans, and the widows who are in your villages.

You are to celebrate the festival seven days before the Lord your God in the place he chooses, for he will bless you in all your productivity and in whatever you do; so you will indeed rejoice!

Three times a year all your males must appear before the Lord your God in the place he chooses for the Festival of Unleavened Bread, the Festival of Weeks, and the Festival of Temporary Shelters; and they must not appear before him empty-handed.

Every one of you must give as you are able, according to the blessing of the Lord your God that he has given you.

You must appoint judges and civil servants for each tribe in all your villages that the Lord your God is giving you, and they must judge the people fairly.

You must not pervert justice or show favor. Do not take a bribe, for bribes blind the eyes of the wise and distort the words of the righteous.

You must pursue justice alone so that you may live and inherit the land the Lord your God is giving you.

You must not plant any kind of tree as a sacred Asherah pole near the altar of the Lord your God which you build for yourself.

You must not erect a sacred pillar, a thing the Lord your God detests.

You must not sacrifice to him a bull or sheep that has a blemish or any other defect, because that is considered offensive to the Lord your God.

Suppose a man or woman is discovered among you -- in one of your villages that the Lord your God is giving you -- who sins before the Lord your God and breaks his covenant

by serving other gods and worshiping them -- the sun, moon, or any other heavenly bodies which I have not permitted you to worship.

you must bring to your city gates that man or woman who has done this wicked thing -- that very man or woman -- and you must stone that person to death.

At the testimony of two or three witnesses they must be executed. They cannot be put to death on the testimony of only one witness.

The witnesses must be first to begin the execution, and then all the people are to join in afterward. In this way you will purge evil from among you.

If a matter is too difficult for you to judge -- bloodshed, legal claim, or assault -- matters of controversy in your villages -- you must leave there and go up to the place the Lord your God chooses.

You must then do as they have determined at that place the Lord chooses. Be careful to do just as you are taught.

You must do what you are instructed, and the verdict they pronounce to you, without fail. Do not deviate right or left from what they tell you.

The person who pays no attention to the priest currently serving the Lord your God there, or to the verdict -- that person must die, so that you may purge evil from Israel.

When you come to the land the Lord your God is giving you and take it over and live in it and then say, "I will select a king like all the nations surrounding me,"

you must select without fail a king whom the Lord your God chooses. From among your fellow citizens you must appoint a king -- you may not designate a foreigner who is not one of your fellow Israelites.

Moreover, he must not accumulate horses for himself or allow the people to return to Egypt to do so, for the Lord has said you must never again return that way.

Then he will not exalt himself above his fellow citizens or turn from the commandments to the right or left, and he and his descendants will enjoy many years ruling over his kingdom in Israel.

The Levitical priests -- indeed, the entire tribe of Levi -- will have no allotment or inheritance with Israel; they may eat the burnt offerings of the Lord and of his inheritance.

This shall be the priests' fair allotment from the people who offer sacrifices, whether bull or sheep -- they must give to the priest the shoulder, the jowls, and the stomach.

You must give them the best of your grain, new wine, and olive oil, as well as the best of your wool when you shear your flocks.

For the Lord your God has chosen them and their sons from all your tribes to stand and serve in his name permanently.

Suppose a Levite comes by his own free will from one of your villages, from any part of Israel where he is living, to the place the Lord chooses

When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, you must not learn the abhorrent practices of those nations.

There must never be found among you anyone who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, anyone who practices divination, an omen reader, a soothsayer, a sorcerer,

one who casts spells, one who conjures up spirits, a practitioner of the occult, or a necromancer.

Whoever does these things is abhorrent to the Lord and because of these detestable things the Lord your God is about to drive them out from before you.

You must be blameless before the Lord your God.

Those nations that you are about to dispossess listen to omen readers and diviners, but the Lord your God has not given you permission to do such things.

The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you -- from your fellow Israelites; you must listen to him.

This accords with what happened at Horeb in the day of the assembly. You asked the Lord your God: "Please do not make us hear the voice of the Lord our God any more or see this great fire any more lest we die."

"But if any prophet presumes to speak anything in my name that I have not authorized him to speak, or speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet must die.

When the Lord your God destroys the nations whose land he is about to give you and you dispossess them and settle in their cities and houses,

you must set apart for yourselves three cities in the middle of your land that the Lord your God is giving you as a possession.

You shall build a roadway and divide into thirds the whole extent of your land that the Lord your God is providing as your inheritance; anyone who kills another person should flee to the closest of these cities.

If the Lord your God enlarges your borders as he promised your ancestors and gives you all the land he pledged to them,

and then you are careful to observe all these commandments I am giving you today (namely, to love the Lord your God and to always walk in his ways), then you must add three more cities to these three.

You must not shed innocent blood in your land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, for that would make you guilty.

You must not encroach on your neighbor's property, which will have been defined in the inheritance you will obtain in the land the Lord your God is giving you.

A single witness may not testify against another person for any trespass or sin that he commits. A matter may be legally established only on the testimony of two or three witnesses.

When you go to war against your enemies and see chariotry and troops who outnumber you, do not be afraid of them, for the Lord your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt, is with you.

"Listen, Israel! Today you are moving forward to do battle with your enemies. Do not be fainthearted. Do not fear and tremble or be terrified because of them,

for the Lord your God goes with you to fight on your behalf against your enemies to give you victory."

Moreover, the officers are to say to the troops, "Who among you has built a new house and not dedicated it? He may go home, lest he die in battle and someone else dedicate it.

Or who among you has planted a vineyard and not benefited from it? He may go home, lest he die in battle and someone else benefit from it.

Or who among you has become engaged to a woman but has not married her? He may go home, lest he die in battle and someone else marry her."

In addition, the officers are to say to the troops, "Who among you is afraid and fainthearted? He may go home so that he will not make his fellow soldier's heart as fearful as his own."

When you approach a city to wage war against it, offer it terms of peace.

If it accepts your terms and submits to you, all the people found in it will become your slaves.

If it does not accept terms of peace but makes war with you, then you are to lay siege to it.

The Lord your God will deliver it over to you and you must kill every single male by the sword.

However, the women, little children, cattle, and anything else in the city -- all its plunder -- you may take for yourselves as spoil. You may take from your enemies the plunder that the Lord your God has given you.

This is how you are to deal with all those cities located far from you, those that do not belong to these nearby nations.

As for the cities of these peoples that the Lord your God is going to give you as an inheritance, you must not allow a single living thing to survive.

Instead you must utterly annihilate them -- the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites -- just as the Lord your God has commanded you,

so that they cannot teach you all the abhorrent ways they worship their gods, causing you to sin against the Lord your God.

However, you may chop down any tree you know is not suitable for food, and you may use it to build siege works against the city that is making war with you until that city falls.

If a homicide victim should be found lying in a field in the land the Lord your God is giving you, and no one knows who killed him,

your elders and judges must go out and measure how far it is to the cities in the vicinity of the corpse.

and bring the heifer down to a wadi with flowing water, to a valley that is neither plowed nor sown. There at the wadi they are to break the heifer's neck.

Then the Levitical priests will approach (for the Lord your God has chosen them to serve him and to pronounce blessings in his name, and to decide every judicial verdict)

Then they must proclaim, "Our hands have not spilled this blood, nor have we witnessed the crime.

Do not blame your people Israel whom you redeemed, O Lord, and do not hold them accountable for the bloodshed of an innocent person." Then atonement will be made for the bloodshed.

When you go out to do battle with your enemies and the Lord your God allows you to prevail and you take prisoners,

you may bring her back to your house. She must shave her head, trim her nails,

discard the clothing she was wearing when captured, and stay in your house, lamenting for her father and mother for a full month. After that you may have sexual relations with her and become her husband and she your wife.

If you are not pleased with her, then you must let her go where she pleases. You cannot in any case sell her; you must not take advantage of her, since you have already humiliated her.

If a person has a stubborn, rebellious son who pays no attention to his father or mother, and they discipline him to no avail,

They must declare to the elders of his city, "Our son is stubborn and rebellious and pays no attention to what we say -- he is a glutton and drunkard."

his body must not remain all night on the tree; instead you must make certain you bury him that same day, for the one who is left exposed on a tree is cursed by God. You must not defile your land which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance.

When you see your neighbor's ox or sheep going astray, do not ignore it; you must return it without fail to your neighbor.

If the owner does not live near you or you do not know who the owner is, then you must corral the animal at your house and let it stay with you until the owner looks for it; then you must return it to him.

You shall do the same to his donkey, his clothes, or anything else your neighbor has lost and you have found; you must not refuse to get involved.

When you see your neighbor's donkey or ox fallen along the road, do not ignore it; instead, you must be sure to help him get the animal on its feet again.

A woman must not wear men's clothing, nor should a man dress up in women's clothing, for anyone who does this is offensive to the Lord your God.

If you happen to notice a bird's nest along the road, whether in a tree or on the ground, and there are chicks or eggs with the mother bird sitting on them, you must not take the mother from the young.

If you build a new house, you must construct a guard rail around your roof to avoid being culpable in the event someone should fall from it.

You must not plant your vineyard with two kinds of seed; otherwise the entire yield, both of the seed you plant and the produce of the vineyard, will be defiled.

You must not wear clothing made with wool and linen meshed together.

You shall make yourselves tassels for the four corners of the clothing you wear.

Moreover, he has raised accusations of impropriety by saying, 'I discovered your daughter was not a virgin,' but this is the evidence of my daughter's virginity!" The cloth must then be spread out before the city's elders.

Suppose a man comes across a virgin who is not engaged and overpowers and rapes her and they are discovered.

A man with crushed or severed genitals may not enter the assembly of the Lord.

An Ammonite or Moabite may not enter the assembly of the Lord; to the tenth generation none of their descendants shall ever do so,