Deuteronomy 22

¹ ‘If you see your brother’s ox or one of his sheep straying there must be no evasion: you must take them back to your brother.

² And if he is not close at hand or you do not know who he is, you must take them home with you and keep them by you until your brother comes for them; you will then return them to him.

³ ‘You are to do the same with his donkey, the same with his cloak, the same with anything your brother loses and that you find; there must be no evasion.

⁴ ‘You must not make off when you see your brother’s ox or donkey fall on the road, but must help your brother to put it on its feet again.

⁵ ‘A woman must not wear men’s clothes nor a man put on women’s dress; anyone who does this is detestable to Yahweh your God.

⁶ ‘If, when out walking, you come across a bird’s nest, in a tree or on the ground, with chicks or eggs and the mother bird sitting on the chicks or the eggs, you must not take the mother who is brooding the chicks.

⁷ Let the mother go; the young you may take for yourself. So shall you prosper and have a long life.

⁸ ‘When you build a new house you are to give your roof a parapet; then your house will not incur blood-vengeance through anyone falling from it.

⁹ ‘You must not sow any other seed in your vineyard lest the whole of its produce become consecrated, both the crop you have sown and the produce of your vineyard.

¹⁰ ‘You must not plough with ox and donkey together.

¹¹ ‘You must not wear clothing woven part of wool, part of linen.

¹² ‘You are to make tassels for the four corners of the cloak in which you wrap yourself.

¹³ ‘If a man marries a wife, and sleeps with her and then turns against her,

¹⁴ and taxes her with misconduct and publicly defames her by saying, “I married this woman and when I slept with her I did not find the evidence of her virginity”,

¹⁵ the girl’s father and mother must take her and produce the evidence of her virginity before the elders of the town at the gate.

¹⁶ The girl’s father shall then declare to the elders, “I gave this man my daughter for a wife and he has turned against her,

¹⁷ and now he taxes her with misconduct: I found no evidence of virginity in your daughter, he says. But the evidence of my daughter’s virginity is here”. And they shall spread the cloth out before the elders of the town.

¹⁸ Then the elders of the town shall take the man and flog him

¹⁹ and fine him one hundred silver shekels for publicly defaming a virgin of Israel, and give this money to the girl’s father. She shall remain his wife and as long as he lives he may not repudiate her.

²⁰ ‘But if the accusation that the girl cannot show the evidence of virginity is substantiated,

²¹ they shall take her to the door of her father’s house and her fellow citizens shall stone her to death for having committed an infamy in Israel by disgracing her father’s House. You must banish this evil from your midst.

²² ‘If a man is caught sleeping with another man’s wife, both must die, the man who has slept with her and the woman herself. You must banish this evil from Israel.

²³ ‘If a virgin is betrothed and a man meets her in the city and sleeps with her,

²⁴ you shall take them both out to the gate of the town and stone them to death the girl, because she did not cry for help in the town; the man, because he has violated the wife of his fellow. You must banish this evil from your midst.

²⁵ But if the man has met the betrothed girl in the open country and has taken her by force and lain with her, only the man who lay with her shall die;

²⁶ you must do nothing to the girl, for hers is no capital offence. The case is like that of a man who attacks and kills his fellow;

²⁷ for he came across her in the open country and the betrothed girl could have cried out without anyone coming to her rescue.

²⁸ ‘If a man meets a virgin who is not betrothed and seizes her and lies with her and is caught in the act,

²⁹ the man who has lain with her must give the girl’s father fifty silver shekels; she shall be his wife since he has violated her, and as long as he lives he may not repudiate her.