Study Desk

They shall eat equal portions, apart from what he may receive from the sale of his patrimony.

There shall not be found among you one who makes his son or his daughter go through the fire, or one who practices divination, or an interpreter of signs, or an augur, or sorcerer,

I will raise up a prophet for them from among their countrymen like you, and I will place my words into his mouth, and he shall speak to them everything that I command him.

"Now this is the case of the manslayer who may flee there and live there who has killed his neighbor unintentionally, and he did not hate him previously.

For example, when somebody goes with his neighbor into the forest to cut wood, and the iron head slips from the handle of the tool and strikes his neighbor and he dies, then he may flee to one of these cities, and so he may live.

then if you diligently observe this entire commandment that I am commanding you today by loving Yahweh your God and by going in his ways at all times, then you shall add three more cities for yourselves to these three.

But if someone hates his neighbor and lies in wait for him and rises up against him and murders him, and the murderer flees to one of these cities,

then the elders of his city shall send and take him from there, and they shall give him into the hand of the avenger of blood, and he shall be put to death.

Then judges shall make a thorough inquiry, and if it turns out that the witness is a false witness and he testified falsely against his brother,

then you shall do to him as he meant to do to his brother, and so you shall purge the evil from your midst.

And who is the man that has planted a vineyard and has not enjoyed it? Let him go and let him return to his house, so that he does not die in battle and another man enjoys it.

And who is the man who got engaged to a woman and has not married her? Let him go and let him return to his house, so that he does not die in battle and another man marries her.'

And the officials shall continue to speak to the troops, and they shall say, ‘What man is afraid and disheartened? Let him go, and let him return to his house, and let him not cause the heart of his brothers to melt like his.'

nevertheless it will be the case that on the day of bestowing his inheritance upon his sons, he will not be allowed to treat as the firstborn son the son of the beloved wife in preference to the son of the disliked wife, who is the firstborn son.

But he shall acknowledge the firstborn son of the disliked wife by giving him a double portion of all that he has, for he is the firstfruit of his vigor; to him is the legal claim of the birthright.

"If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not listen to the voice of his father and to the voice of his mother, and they discipline him, and he does not obey them,

then his father and his mother shall take hold of him, and they shall bring him out to the elders of his city and to the gate of his town,

and they shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This our son is stubborn and rebellious; he does not obey us, and he is a glutton and a drunkard.'

Then all the men of his city shall stone him with stones and let him die; and so you shall purge the evil from your midst, and all of Israel will hear, and they will fear.

his dead body shall not hang on the tree, but certainly you shall bury him on that day, for cursed by God is one that is being hung; so you shall not defile your land that Yahweh your God is giving to you as an inheritance."