Deuteronomy 21

1If a slain man is found in the land that Yahweh your God is giving you to possess, lying in the open field, and it is not known who struck him,

2then your elders and your judges shall go out and measure to the cities that are around the slain man.

3And it shall be that the city nearest to the slain man, the elders of that city shall take a heifer from the herd that has not been worked with and has not pulled in a yoke.

4Then the elders of that city shall bring the heifer down to a perennial wadi, which is neither worked nor sown, and there in the wadi they shall break the heifer’s neck.

5And the priests, the sons of Levi, shall come forward, for Yahweh your God has chosen them to minister to him and to bless in the name of Yahweh, and by their word every dispute and every injury shall be settled.

6And all the elders of that city nearest to the slain man shall wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the wadi.

7Then they shall answer and say, ‘Our hands did not shed this blood, and our eyes did not see it.’

8Make atonement for your people Israel, whom you redeemed, O Yahweh, and do not let innocent blood remain among your people Israel. Then the bloodguilt will be atoned for them.

9So you shall purge the innocent blood from your midst, because you shall do what is right in the eyes of Yahweh.

10When you go out to war against your enemies, and Yahweh your God gives them into your hand, and you take them captive,

11and you see among the captives a woman beautiful in form, and you desire her and take her for yourself as a wife,

12then you shall bring her into your house, and she shall shave her head and trim her nails.

13She shall remove the clothing of her captivity from herself and remain in your house, and mourn her father and her mother for a month of days. After that you may go in to her and be her husband, and she shall be your wife.

14But if it happens that you do not delight in her, then you shall let her go where she wishes; you must certainly not sell her for money. You must not treat her as merchandise, because you have humiliated her.

15If a man has two wives, one loved and the other unloved, and both the loved and the unloved have borne him sons, and the firstborn son belongs to the unloved wife,

16And on the day he gives his sons as an inheritance what belongs to him, he may not treat the son of the loved wife as firstborn over the son of the hated wife, who is the firstborn.

17But he shall acknowledge the firstborn, the son of the unloved wife, by giving him a double portion of all that is found to belong to him, for he is the firstfruits of his vigor; the right of the firstborn belongs to him.

18If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not listen to the voice of his father or to the voice of his mother, and though they discipline him, he does not listen to them,

19then his father and his mother shall seize him and bring him out to the elders of his city and to the gate of his place.

20Then they shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious; he does not listen to our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.’

21Then all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, and he shall die. So you shall purge the evil from your midst, and all Israel shall hear and fear.

22And if in a man there is a sin deserving death, and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree,

23His corpse shall not remain all night on the tree, but you shall surely bury him that same day, for a hanged man is under God's curse; and you shall not defile your land that Yahweh your God is giving you as an inheritance.