If that city accepts your terms of peace and opens its gates to you, then all the people who are found in it shall become your forced labor and shall serve you.

However, if it does not make peace with you, but makes war against you, then you shall lay siege to it.

That is what you shall do to all the cities that are very far away from you, which are not among the cities of these nations nearby [which you are to dispossess].

so that they will not teach you to act in accordance with all the detestable practices which they have done [in worship and service] for their gods, and in this way cause you to sin against the Lord your God.

“When you besiege a city for a long time, making war against it in order to capture it, you shall not destroy its [fruit-bearing] trees by swinging an axe against them; for you may eat from them, and you shall not cut them down. For is the tree of the field a man, that it should be besieged (destroyed) by you?

“If someone is found slain, lying in the field, in the land which the Lord your God gives you to possess, and it is not known who has killed him,

then your elders and judges shall go out and measure the distance to the cities which are around the dead person.

It shall be that the elders of the city which is nearest to the dead man shall take a heifer of the herd, one which has not been worked and which has not pulled in a yoke;

and the elders of that city shall bring the heifer down to a [river] valley with running water, which has not been plowed or planted, and shall break the heifer’s neck there in the valley.

Then the priests, the sons of Levi, shall approach, for the Lord your God has chosen them to serve Him and to bless in the Name (Presence) of the Lord; and every dispute and every assault (violent crime) shall be settled by them.

All the elders of that city nearest to the dead man shall wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the valley;

Forgive Your people Israel whom You have redeemed, O Lord, and do not put the guilt of innocent blood among Your people Israel.’ And the guilt of blood shall be forgiven them.

So shall you remove the guilt of innocent blood from among you, when you do what is right in the sight of the Lord.

“When you go out to battle against your enemies, and the Lord your God hands them over to you and you lead them away captive,

then you shall bring her [home] to your house, and she shall shave her head and trim her nails [in preparation for mourning].

She shall take off the clothes of her captivity and remain in your house, and weep (mourn) for her father and her mother a full month. After that you may go in to her and be her husband and she shall be your wife.

“If a man has two wives, one loved and the other unloved, and both the loved and the unloved have born him sons, and the firstborn son belongs to the unloved wife,

then on the day when he wills his possessions to his sons, he cannot treat the son of his loved wife as firstborn in place of the son of the unloved wife—the [actual] firstborn.

“If any man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or of his mother, and when they reprimand and discipline him, he will not listen to them,

then his father and mother shall take hold of him, and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gateway of his hometown.

They shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey us, he is a glutton and a drunkard.’

Then all the men of his city shall stone him to death; so you shall remove the evil from among you, and all Israel will hear of it and be afraid.

“And if a man has committed a sin worthy of death, and he is put to death and [afterward] you hang him on a tree [as a public example],

his body shall not hang all night on the tree, but you shall most certainly bury him on the same day (for he who is hanged is cursed by God), so that you do not defile your land which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance.

“You shall not see your countryman’s ox or his sheep straying away or being stolen, and ignore [your duty to help] them; you shall certainly take them back to him.

If your countryman is not nearby or you do not know him, you shall bring the animal to your house, and it shall stay with you until he searches for it; then you shall return it to him.

You shall do this with his donkey or with his garment or with anything that your countryman has lost and you have found. You are not allowed to ignore [your duty to help] them.

You shall not see your countryman’s donkey or his ox fall down along the road, and ignore [your duty to help] them; you shall certainly help him lift it up.

“A woman shall not wear a man’s clothing, nor shall a man put on a woman’s clothing; for whoever does these things is utterly repulsive to the Lord your God.

“If you happen to come upon a bird’s nest along the road, in any tree or on the ground, with young ones or eggs, and the mother [bird] is sitting on the young or on the eggs, you shall not take the mother with the young.

“You shall not sow your vineyard with two kinds of seed, or everything produced by the seed which you have sown and the yield of the vineyard will become defiled [and banned for use].

“If any man takes a wife and goes in to her and then scorns and hates her,

and charges her [without cause] with shameful behavior and publicly defames her, and says, ‘I took this woman, but when I approached her, I did not find in her evidence of virginity,’

then the young woman’s father and her mother shall get and bring out the evidence of her virginity to the elders of the city at the gate [where court is held].

The father of the young woman shall say to the elders, ‘I gave my daughter to this man as a wife, but he hates her and has turned against her;

and they shall fine him a hundred shekels of silver and give it to the father of the young woman, because he publicly defamed a virgin of Israel. And she shall remain his wife; he is not allowed to divorce her as long as he lives.

then they shall bring her out to the doorway of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death because she has committed a deliberate sin in Israel by playing the prostitute in her father’s house. So you shall remove the evil from among you.

“If a man is intimate with a woman who is another man’s wife, they shall both be put to death, the man who lay with the woman, and the woman. So you shall remove the evil from Israel.

“If a young woman who is a virgin is engaged (legally betrothed) to a man, and another man finds her in the city and is intimate with her,

then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city and stone them to death—the young woman because she did not cry out for help [though she was] in the city, and the man because he has violated his neighbor’s [promised] wife. So you shall remove the evil from among you.

“However, if the man finds the girl who is engaged (legally betrothed) in the [open] field, and seizes her and is intimate with her [by force], then only the man who lies with her shall be put to death.

But you shall do nothing to the young woman; she has committed no sin worthy of death, for this is the same as when a man attacks his neighbor and murders him.

When he found her in the [open] field, the engaged girl [may have] cried out for help, but there was no one to [hear and] save her.

then the man who was intimate with her shall give fifty shekels of silver to the girl’s father, and she shall become his wife because he has violated her; he can never divorce her.

“A man shall not take his father’s [former] wife, so that he will not expose his father’s wife.

A person of illegitimate birth shall not enter the assembly of the Lord; none of his descendants, even to the tenth generation.

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

because they did not meet you with bread (food) and water on the road as you came out of Egypt, and because they hired [to act] against you Balaam the son of Beor from Pethor of Mesopotamia, to curse you.

Nevertheless, the Lord your God was not willing to listen to Balaam, but the Lord your God turned the curse into a blessing for you because the Lord your God has loved you.

“If there is any man among you who is [ceremonially] unclean because of nocturnal emission, then he must go outside the camp; he shall not come back to the camp.

But when evening comes, he shall bathe in water, and at sundown he may return to the camp.

“You shall also have a place outside the camp to which you may go,

and you shall have a spade among your tools, and when you [prepare to] sit down outside [to relieve yourself], you shall dig a hole with it and shall turn and cover up your waste.

Since the Lord your God walks in the midst of your camp to rescue you and to defeat your enemies before you, therefore your camp must be holy (undefiled); and He must not see anything indecent among you or He will turn away from you.

“You shall not hand over to his master a slave who has escaped from his master to you.

You shall not bring the wages of a prostitute or the price of a dog [that is, a male prostitute] into the house of the Lord your God as payment for any vow, for both of these [the gift and the giver] are utterly repulsive to the Lord your God.

“You shall not charge interest to your fellow Israelite—interest on money, food or anything that may be loaned for interest.

You may charge interest to a foreigner, but to your fellow Israelite you shall not charge interest, so that the Lord your God may bless you in all that you undertake in the land which you are about to enter to possess.

“When you make a vow to the Lord your God, you shall not delay to pay it, for He will most certainly require it of you, and a delay would cause you to sin.

You shall be careful to perform that [vow] which passes your lips, just as you have made a voluntary vow to the Lord your God, just as you have promised with your own words (mouth).

“When you come into the standing grain of your neighbor, you may pluck the ears of grain with your hand, but you shall not wield a sickle in your neighbor’s standing grain [to harvest it].

then her former husband who [first] sent her away may not take her again as his wife, since she has been defiled; for that is an outrage before the Lord, and you shall not bring sin on the land which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance.

“If a man is caught kidnapping any of his countrymen from the sons of Israel, and he treats him violently or sells him [as a slave], then that thief shall die. So you shall remove the evil from among you.

“Be careful during an outbreak of leprosy, that you diligently observe and do according to all that the Levitical priests teach you; just as I have commanded them, so you shall be careful to do.

Remember [with thoughtful concern] what the Lord your God did to Miriam on the road as you came out of Egypt.

“When you lend your neighbor anything, you shall not go into his house to get his pledge (security deposit).

You shall stand outside, and the man to whom you lend shall bring the pledge out to you.

You shall certainly restore the pledge (security deposit) to him at sunset, so that he may sleep in his garment and bless you; and it will be credited to you as righteousness (right standing) before the Lord your God.

You shall give him his wages on the day that he earns them before the sun sets—for he is poor and is counting on it—so that he does not cry out to the Lord against you, and it becomes a sin for you.

“The fathers shall not be put to death for [the sins of] their children, nor shall the children be put to death for their fathers; [only] for his own sin shall anyone be put to death.

“You shall not pervert the justice due a stranger or an orphan, nor seize (impound) a widow’s garment as security [for a loan].

But you shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you from there; therefore I am commanding you to do this thing.

“When you reap your harvest in your field and have forgotten a sheaf [of grain] in the field, you shall not go back to get it; it shall be for the stranger, for the orphan, and for the widow, so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands.

When you beat [the olives off of] your olive tree, do not search through the branches again; [whatever is left] shall be for the stranger, for the orphan, and for the widow.

You shall [thoughtfully] remember [the fact] that you were a slave in the land of Egypt; therefore I am commanding you to do this thing.

then it shall be that if the guilty man deserves to be beaten, the judge shall make him lie down and be beaten in his presence with a [certain] number of stripes in proportion to his offense.

He may have him beaten forty times, but no more. He is not to be beaten with more stripes than these and he is not to be degraded [that is, treated like an animal] in your sight.

“If brothers are living together and one of them dies without a son, the widow of the deceased shall not be married outside the family to a stranger. Her husband’s brother shall be intimate with her after taking her as his wife and perform the duty of a husband’s brother to her.

It shall be that her firstborn [son] will be given the name of the dead brother, so that his name will not be blotted out of Israel.

But if the man does not want to marry his brother’s [widowed] wife, then she shall go up to the gate [of the city, where court is held] to the elders, and say, ‘My brother-in-law refuses to continue his brother’s name in Israel; he is not willing to perform the duty of a husband’s brother.’

Then the elders of his city will summon him and speak to him. And if he stands firm and says, ‘I do not want to marry her,’

then his brother’s widow shall approach him in the presence of the elders, and pull his sandal off his foot and spit in his face; and she shall answer and say, ‘So it is done to that man who does not build up his brother’s household.’

“If [two] men, a man and his countryman, are fighting and the wife of one approaches to rescue her husband from the man who is striking him, and she reaches out with her hand and grabs the aggressor’s genitals,

For everyone who does such things, everyone who acts unjustly [without personal integrity] is utterly repulsive to the Lord your God.

“Remember what Amalek did to you along the road when you came from Egypt,

Therefore when the Lord your God has given you rest from all your surrounding enemies, in the land which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance to possess, you shall wipe out the memory of Amalek from under heaven; you must not forget.

that you shall take some of the first of all the produce of the ground which you harvest from the land that the Lord your God gives you, and you shall put it in a basket and go to the place where the Lord your God chooses to establish His Name (Presence).

You shall go to the priest who is in office at that time and say to him, ‘I declare this day to the Lord my God that I have entered the land which the Lord swore to our fathers to give us.’

And you shall say before the Lord your God, ‘My father [Jacob] was a wandering Aramean, and he [along with his family] went down to Egypt and lived there [as strangers], few in number; but while there he became a great, mighty and populous nation.

Then we cried out to the Lord, the God of our fathers for help, and He heard our voice and saw our suffering and our labor and our [cruel] oppression;

“When you have finished paying all the tithe of your produce the third year, [which is] the year of tithing, then you shall give it to the Levite, to the stranger, to the orphan, and to the widow, so that they may eat within the gates of your cities and be satisfied.

You shall say before the Lord your God, ‘I have removed the sacred portion (the tithe) from my house and also have given it to the Levite, to the stranger, to the orphan, and to the widow, in accordance with all that You have commanded me. I have not transgressed or forgotten any of Your commandments.

I have not eaten from the tithe while mourning, nor have I removed any of it when I was [ceremonially] unclean [making the tithe ceremonially unclean], nor offered any of it to the dead. I have listened to the voice of the Lord my God; I have done everything in accordance with all that You have commanded me.

Look down from Your holy dwelling above, from heaven, and bless Your people Israel, and the land which You have given us, as You have sworn to our fathers, a land [of plenty] flowing with milk and honey.’

“This day the Lord your God commands you to do these statutes and judgments (precepts). Therefore, you shall be careful to do them with all your heart and with all your soul (your entire being).

Today you have [openly] declared the Lord to be your God, and that you will walk [that is, live each and every day] in His ways and keep His statutes, His commandments, and His judgments (precepts), and listen to His voice.

Today the Lord has declared that you are His people, His treasured possession, just as He promised you, and that you are to keep all His commandments;

and that He will set you high above all the nations which He has made, for praise, fame, and honor: and that you shall be a holy people [set apart and consecrated] to the Lord your God, just as He has spoken.”

So it shall be on the day when you cross the Jordan to [enter] the land which the Lord your God gives you, that you shall set up for yourself large stones and coat them with plaster (lime, whitewash).

Now when you cross the Jordan you shall set up these stones on Mount Ebal, just as I am commanding you today and coat them with plaster.