Knox Bible

1

If thou seest ox or sheep that belongs to thy fellow-Israelite going astray, do not hurry past; take it back to its owner,

2

if he is a neighbour of thine, and known to thee. If not, shelter it thyself till he enquires, and restore it.

3

And so with an ass or with a garment or any other lost thing that belongs to thy fellow-Israelite; do not leave them where thou findest them, as if it did not concern thee.

4

If his ox or his ass falls down by the wayside, do not hurry past; help him to lift it up again.

5

A woman must not wear man’s clothes, or a man go clad like a woman; all such doings are hateful to God.

6

If thou findest in thy path, in a tree or on the ground, a mother bird sitting on her nestlings or her eggs, do not carry her off with her young;

7

let her go, and be content with her brood; so shalt thou prosper and live long.

8

When thou buildest a new house, make a parapet about its roof; if anyone should lose his footing and fall to the ground, thy house is polluted with blood, and the guilt is thine.

9

Do not sow thy vineyard with a second kind of seed, or both the crop thou hast sown and the fruit of thy vineyard are forfeit.

10

Do not plough with an ox and an ass together;

11

or wear garments woven of linen and wool together.✻

12

Thou shalt wear tasselled strings at the four corners of the garment thou wearest.

13

It may be that a husband will grow weary of the wife he has taken,

14

and look about him for pretexts to put her away. Such a man will perhaps fasten an ill name on her, by complaining that when he bedded her she was found to be no maid.

15

Thereupon her father and mother must bring her before the elders at the city gate, and the proofs of her maidenhood with her;

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and the father will say, I gave this man my daughter in marriage, and now he is weary of her;

17

that is why he would fasten an ill name upon her by telling me he found my daughter no maid. And here are the proofs of my daughter’s maidenhood. With that, he will spread the cloth out in sight of the elders;

18

and these will lay hold of the man and beat him,

19

fining him, moreover, a hundred sicles of silver, for fastening an ill name on a maid of Israel. He must pay them to the woman’s father, and must keep her as his wife; as long as he lives he may not put her away.

20

If the charge he made was true, and the woman was found indeed to be no maid,

21

then the citizens must cast her out of her father’s door and stone her to death; this was a foul deed done in a woman of Israel, to play the wanton in her own father’s house; rid thy company of such a plague as that.

22

If a man beds with another’s wife, both must die, adulterer and adulteress, and so Israel is rid of a plague.

23

A man has fallen in with a maid betrothed to some other, and mated with her. Was it done in the city?

24

Then both must be taken to the city gate and stoned to death; she, because she made no outcry, with all the city close at hand, he, because he robbed his neighbour’s wife of her maidenhood.

25

Or did the man fall in with this betrothed maid in the countryside, and force her to grant his will? Then he alone must die; no harm shall befall the woman.

26

She has not deserved death; she was defenceless as a man suddenly attacked and killed by a brigand;

27

cry as she might, far out in the countryside, no one could come to her aid.

28

If a man falls in with a maid still unbetrothed, and forces her to do his will, and the matter is brought to judgement,

29

the man who mated with her must pay her fifty sicles of silver, and keep her as his wife, now that he has robbed her of her maidenhood; as long as he lives he may not put her away.

30

A man must not take his father’s wife, and come between his own father’s sheets.