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Easy-to-Read Version

Numbers 31:18

You can let all the young girls live—but only if they never had sexual relations with any man.

Bible Study Resources

Concordances:

- Nave's Topical Bible - Captive;   Sanitation;   Women;   Torrey's Topical Textbook - Desert, Journey of Israel through the;  

Dictionaries:

- American Tract Society Bible Dictionary - Midianites;   Fausset Bible Dictionary - Moab;   Holman Bible Dictionary - Concubine;   Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible - Midian, Mtdianites;   Morrish Bible Dictionary - Eleazar ;   Midian, Midianites ;  

Encyclopedias:

- Condensed Biblical Cyclopedia - On to Canaan;   Moses, the Man of God;   International Standard Bible Encyclopedia - Slave;   Stranger and Sojourner (in the Old Testament);   The Jewish Encyclopedia - Hafá¹­arah;   Midian and Midianites;   Sidra;  

Parallel Translations

Hebrew Names Version
But all the girls, who have not known man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.
King James Version
But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.
Lexham English Bible
But all the females who have not had sexual intercourse with a man, keep alive for yourselves.
English Standard Version
But all the young girls who have not known man by lying with him keep alive for yourselves.
New Century Version
But save for yourselves the girls who have not had sexual relations with a man.
New English Translation
But all the young women who have not had sexual intercourse with a man will be yours.
Amplified Bible
"But all the young girls who have not known a man intimately, keep alive for yourselves [to marry].
New American Standard Bible
"However, all the girls who have not known a man intimately, keep alive for yourselves.
Geneva Bible (1587)
But all the women children that haue not knowen carnall copulation, keepe aliue for your selues.
Legacy Standard Bible
But all the girls who have not known man intimately, spare for yourselves.
Contemporary English Version
But do not kill the young women who have never had sex. You may keep them for yourselves."
Complete Jewish Bible
But the young girls who have never slept with a man, keep alive for yourselves.
Darby Translation
but all the children among the women that have not known lying with a man, keep alive for yourselves.
George Lamsa Translation
But all the female children, who have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.
Good News Translation
but keep alive for yourselves all the girls and all the women who are virgins.
Christian Standard Bible®
but keep alive for yourselves all the young females who have not gone to bed with a man.
Literal Translation
And you shall keep alive for yourselves all the female children who have not known a man by lying with a male.
Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
But all the wemen chidren yt haue knowne no me ner lien wt them, kepe those alyue for youre selues.
American Standard Version
But all the women-children, that have not known man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.
Bible in Basic English
But all the female children who have had no sex relations with men, you may keep for yourselves.
Bishop's Bible (1568)
But all the women children that haue not lien with men carnally, kepe alyue for your selues.
JPS Old Testament (1917)
But all the women children, that have not known man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.
King James Version (1611)
But all the women children that haue not knowen a man by lying with him, keepe aliue for your selues.
Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
And as for all the captivity of women, who have not known the lying with man, save ye them alive.
English Revised Version
But all the women children, that have not known man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.
Berean Standard Bible
but spare for yourselves every girl who has never had relations with a man.
Wycliffe Bible (1395)
forsothe reserue ye to you damesels, and alle wymmen virgyns,
Young's Literal Translation
and all the infants among the women, who have not known the lying of a male, ye have kept alive for yourselves.
Update Bible Version
But all the women-children, that haven't had sex with a man, keep alive for yourselves.
Webster's Bible Translation
But all the female children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.
World English Bible
But all the girls, who have not known man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.
New King James Version
But keep alive for yourselves all the young girls who have not known a man intimately.
New Living Translation
Only the young girls who are virgins may live; you may keep them for yourselves.
New Life Bible
But keep alive for yourselves all the girls who have not had a man.
New Revised Standard
But all the young girls who have not known a man by sleeping with him, keep alive for yourselves.
J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
But all the young of womankind that hay, not cohabited with man, preserve alive for yourselves.
Douay-Rheims Bible
But the girls, and all the women that are virgins save for yourselves:
Revised Standard Version
But all the young girls who have not known man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.
New American Standard Bible (1995)
"But all the girls who have not known man intimately, spare for yourselves.

Contextual Overview

13 Then Moses, Eleazar the priest, and the leaders of the people went out of the camp to meet with the soldiers. 14 Moses was very angry with the leaders of the army, the commanders of 1000 men, and the commanders of 100 men, who came back from the war. 15 Moses said to them, "Why did you let the women live? 16 These are the women who listened to Balaam and caused the men of Israel to turn away from the Lord that time at Peor. The disease will come to the Lord 's people again. 17 Now, kill all the Midianite boys, and kill all the Midianite women who have had sexual relations with a man. 18 You can let all the young girls live—but only if they never had sexual relations with any man. 19 And then, all you men who killed other people must stay outside the camp for seven days. You must stay outside the camp even if you just touched a dead body. On the third day you and your prisoners must make yourselves pure. You must do the same thing again on the seventh day. 20 You must wash all of your clothes. You must wash anything made with leather, wool, or wood. You must purify yourselves." 21 Then Eleazar the priest spoke to the soldiers. He said, "These are the rules that the Lord gave to Moses for soldiers coming back from war. 22You must put gold, silver, bronze, iron, tin, or lead into the fire and then wash these things with the special water to make them pure. If something can be put in the fire, you must put it in fire to purify it. If things cannot be put in fire, you must still wash them with the special water.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

keep alive for yourselves: It has been groundlessly asserted, that Moses here authorised the Israelites to make concubines of the whole number of female children; and an insidious objection against his writings has been grounded upon this monstrous supposition. But the whole tenor of the law, and especially a statute recorded in Deuteronomy 21:10-14, proves most decisively to the contrary. They were merely permitted to possess them as female slaves, educating them in their families, and employing them as domestics; for the laws concerning fornication, concubinage, and marriage, were in full force, and prohibited an Israelite even from marrying a captive, without delays and previous formalities; and if he afterwards divorced her, he was to set here at liberty, "because he had humbled her." Leviticus 25:44, Deuteronomy 20:14, Deuteronomy 21:10-14, 2 Chronicles 28:8-10, Isaiah 14:2

Reciprocal: Genesis 24:16 - known Deuteronomy 20:13 - thou shalt smite Deuteronomy 21:11 - that Judges 21:11 - every male

Cross-References

Genesis 27:41
After that Esau hated Jacob because of this blessing. Esau said to himself, "My father will soon die, and after we are finished with that, I will kill Jacob."
Genesis 28:21
and if I return in peace to my father's house—if he does all these things—then the Lord will be my God.
Genesis 31:1
One day Jacob heard Laban's sons talking. They said, "Jacob has taken everything that our father owned. He has become rich—and he has taken all this wealth from our father."
Genesis 31:2
Then Jacob noticed that Laban was not as friendly as he had been in the past.
Genesis 31:27
Why did you run away without telling me? If you had told me, I would have given you a party. There would have been singing and dancing with music.
Genesis 31:29
I have the power to really hurt you. But last night the God of your father came to me in a dream. He warned me not to hurt you in any way.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

But all the women children,.... The females among the little ones:

that have not known a man by lying with him; which might be pretty clear, and easily concluded, from their age:

keep for yourselves; either to be handmaids to them, or to be married among them when grown up, and become proselytes, and initiated into their religion.


 
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