Study Desk

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

and serves in the name of the Lord his God like his fellow Levites who stand there before the Lord .

He must eat the same share they do, despite any profits he may gain from the sale of his family's inheritance.

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,

I will raise up a prophet like you for them from among their fellow Israelites. I will put my words in his mouth and he will speak to them whatever I command.

Suppose he goes with someone else to the forest to cut wood and when he raises the ax to cut the tree, the ax head flies loose from the handle and strikes his fellow worker so hard that he dies. The person responsible may then flee to one of these cities to save himself.

Otherwise the blood avenger will chase after the killer in the heat of his anger, eventually overtake him, and kill him, though this is not a capital case since he did not hate him at the time of the accident.

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.

The elders of his own city must send for him and remove him from there to deliver him over to the blood avenger to die.

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."

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)

In the day he divides his inheritance he must not appoint as firstborn the son of the favorite wife in place of the other wife's son who is actually the firstborn.

Rather, he must acknowledge the son of the less loved wife as firstborn and give him the double portion of all he has, for that son is the beginning of his father's procreative power—to him should go the right of the firstborn.

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

his father and mother must seize him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his city.

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."

Then all the men of his city must stone him to death. In this way you will purge out wickedness from among you, and all Israel will hear about it and be afraid.

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.

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.

They will fine him one hundred shekels of silver and give them to the young woman's father, for the man who made the accusation ruined the reputation of an Israelite virgin. She will then become his wife and he may never divorce her as long as he lives.