1 ¶ If, in the land that the LORD your God gives you to possess, someone is found lying in a field murdered, and it is not known who has killed him:

2 Then your elders and your judges shall come out, and they shall measure the distance to the cities that are around the one who is slain:

3 And it shall be, that the elders of the city which is nearest to the slain man, shall take a heifer, which has never been worked, and has never pulled the yoke;

4 And the elders of that city shall bring the heifer down to a valley with running water, which has been neither plowed or sown, and shall strike off the heifer’s neck there in the valley:

5 And the priests the sons of Levi shall come near; for the LORD your God has chosen them to minister to him, and to bless in the name of the LORD; and every controversy and every assault shall be settled by their word:

6 And all the elders of the city, that is nearest to the slain man, shall wash their hands over the heifer that has been beheaded in the valley:

7 And they shall testify, saying, Our hands have not shed this blood, nor have our eyes seen it.

8 Be merciful, O LORD, to your people Israel, whom you have redeemed, and do not lay innocent blood to the charge of your people of Israel. And the blood shall be forgiven them.

9 In that way you shall purge the guilt of innocent blood from among you, when you shall do that which is right in the sight of the LORD.

10 ¶ When you go out to fight against your enemies, and the LORD your God has delivered them into your hands, and you have taken them captive,

11 And see among the captives a beautiful woman, and desire to have her, and want to make her your wife;

12 Then you shall bring her home to your house; and she shall shave her head, and clip her nails;

13 And she shall remove the clothes that she was wearing when she was taken prisoner, and shall remain in your house, and mourn her father and mother for one full month: and after that you may go in to her, and be her husband, and she shall be your wife.

14 And if it happens, that you no longer have any desire for her, then you shall let her go free; but you shall in no way sell her for money, you shall not make merchandise of her, because you have humbled her.

15 ¶ If a man has two wives, one beloved, and another hated, and they have both born him children; and if the firstborn son is born to the one who is hated:

16 Then at the time, when he wills the things he has to his sons, he may not treat the son of the beloved as firstborn in preference to the son of the hated, who is actually the firstborn:

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

18 ¶ If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son, who will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and after they have chastened him, still will not listen to them:

19 Then his father and mother shall take hold of him, and bring him out to the elders of his city, and to the gate of the place where he lives;

20 And they shall say to the elders of his city, This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard.

21 Then all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, so that he dies: in that way you shall put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear.

22 And if a man has committed a sin worthy of death, and he is to be put to death, and you hang him on a tree:

23 His body shall not remain all night on the tree, but you shall surely bury him that same day; (for a hanged man is accursed by God;) you shall not defile your land, which the LORD your God gives you as an inheritance.