Study Desk

"This is what you shall do to all the cities that are very far from you, which are not of the cities of these nations nearby.

"Only in the cities of these peoples that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, you shall not leave anything that breathes alive.

"Instead, you shall utterly destroy them, the Hittite and the Amorite, the Canaanite and the Perizzite, the Hivite and the Jebusite, just as the LORD your God has commanded you,

"When you besiege a city for a long time, to make war against it in order to capture it, you shall not destroy its trees by swinging an axe against them; for you may eat from them, so you shall not cut them down. For is the tree of the field a human, that it should be besieged by you?

"Only the trees that you know are not fruit trees you shall destroy and cut down, so that you may construct siegeworks against the city that is making war against you until it falls.

then your elders and your judges shall go out and measure the distance to the cities which are around the one who was killed.

"And it shall be that the city which is nearest to the person killed, that is, that the elders of that city shall take a heifer of the herd that has not been worked and has not pulled in a yoke;

and the elders of that city shall bring the heifer down to a valley with running water, which has not been plowed or sown, and they shall break the heifer's neck there in the valley.

"Then the priests, the sons of Levi, shall come forward, because the LORD your God has chosen them to serve Him and to bless in the name of the LORD; and every dispute and violent crime shall be settled by them.

"And all the elders of that city which is nearest to the person killed shall wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the valley;

and they shall respond and say, 'Our hands did not shed this blood, nor did our eyes see who did.

'Forgive Your people Israel whom You have redeemed, LORD, and do not place the guilt for innocent blood in the midst of Your people Israel.' And the guilt for bloodshed shall be forgiven them.

"So you shall remove the guilt for innocent blood from your midst, when you do what is right in the eyes of the LORD.

then you shall bring her into your home, and she shall shave her head and trim her nails.

"She shall also remove the clothes of her captivity and shall remain in your house, and weep for her father and mother a full month; and after that you may have relations with her and become her husband and she shall be your wife.

"But it shall be, if you are not pleased with her, then you shall let her go wherever she wishes; and you certainly shall not sell her for money, you shall not treat her as merchandise, since you have humiliated her.

then it shall be on the day that he wills what he owns as an inheritance to his sons, he is not allowed to treat the son of the loved wife as the firstborn, at the expense of the son of the unloved, who actually is the firstborn son.

"On the contrary, he shall acknowledge the firstborn, the son of the unloved wife, by giving him a double portion of everything that he owns, for he was the beginning of his strength; to him belongs the right of the firstborn.

then his father and mother shall seize him, and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gateway of his hometown.

"And they shall say to the elders of his city, 'This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious; he does not obey us, he is thoughtless and given to drinking.'