Deuteronomy 23-25

Amplified Bible

Persons Excluded from the Assembly

23 “He who has been castrated by having his testicles crushed or his male organ cut off shall not enter the congregation of the Lord. ² A person of ^[a]illegitimate birth shall not enter the assembly of the Lord; none of his descendants, even to the tenth generation. ³ An Ammonite or ^[b]Moabite shall not enter the assembly of the Lord; none of their descendants, even to the tenth generation, shall ever enter the assembly of the Lord, ⁴ because they did not meet you with bread (food) and water on the road as you came out of Egypt, and because they hired [to act] against you Balaam the son of Beor from Pethor of Mesopotamia, to curse you. ⁵ Nevertheless, the Lord your God was not willing to listen to Balaam, but the Lord your God turned the curse into a blessing for you because the Lord your God has loved you. ⁶ You shall never seek their peace nor their prosperity all your days.

⁷ “You shall not detest an Edomite, for he is your brother [Esau’s descendant]. You shall not detest an Egyptian, because you were a stranger (resident alien, foreigner) in his land. ⁸ Their children of the third generation who are born to them may enter the assembly of the Lord.

⁹ “When you go out as an army [to fight] against your enemies, you shall keep yourselves from every evil [thing].

¹⁰ “If there is any man among you who is [ceremonially] unclean because of nocturnal emission, then he must go outside the camp; he shall not come back to the camp. ¹¹ But when evening comes, he shall bathe in water, and at sundown he may return to the camp.

¹² “You shall also have a place outside the camp to which you may go, ¹³ and you shall have a spade among your tools, and when you [prepare to] sit down outside [to relieve yourself], you shall dig a hole with it and shall turn and cover up your waste. ¹⁴ Since the Lord your God walks in the midst of your camp to rescue you and to defeat your enemies before you, therefore your camp must be holy (undefiled); and He must not see anything indecent among you or He will turn away from you.

¹⁵ “You shall not hand over to his master a slave who has escaped from his master to you. ¹⁶ He shall live among you, in the place he chooses in one of your cities where it pleases him; you shall not mistreat or oppress him.

¹⁷ “There shall be no cult prostitute among the daughters of Israel, nor shall there be a cult prostitute (a sodomite) among the sons of Israel. ¹⁸ You shall not bring the wages of a prostitute or the price of a dog [that is, a male prostitute] into the house of the Lord your God as payment for any vow, for both of these [the gift and the giver] are utterly repulsive to the Lord your God.

¹⁹ “You shall not charge interest to your fellow Israelite—interest on money, food or anything that may be loaned for interest. ²⁰ You may charge interest to a foreigner, but to your fellow Israelite you shall not charge interest, so that the Lord your God may bless you in ^[c]all that you undertake in the land which you are about to enter to possess.

²¹ “When you make a ^[d]vow to the Lord your God, you shall not delay to pay it, for He will most certainly require it of you, and a delay would cause you to sin. ²² But if you refrain from making a vow, that would not be [counted as] sin in you. ²³ You shall be careful to perform that [vow] which passes your lips, just as you have made a voluntary vow to the Lord your God, just as you have promised with your own words (mouth).

²⁴ “When you enter your neighbor’s vineyard, you may eat your fill of grapes, ^[e]as many as you please, but you shall not put any in your basket [to take with you].

²⁵ “When you come into the standing grain of your neighbor, you may ^[f]pluck the ears of grain with your hand, but you shall not wield a sickle in your neighbor’s standing grain [to harvest it].

Law of Divorce

24 “When a man takes a wife and marries her, and it happens that she ^[g]loses his favor because he has found something indecent or unacceptable about her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, ² and after she leaves his house, she goes and becomes another man’s wife, ³ and if the latter husband ^[h]turns against her and writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house, or if the latter husband dies who took her as his wife, ⁴ then her former husband who [first] sent her away may not take her again as his wife, since she has been defiled; for that is an outrage before the Lord, and you shall not bring sin on the land which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance.

⁵ “When a man takes a new wife, he shall not go out [to fight] with the army nor be charged with any duty; he shall be free at home for one year and shall bring happiness to his wife whom he has taken.

Various Laws

⁶ “No one shall take a handmill or an upper millstone [used to grind grain into bread] as security [for a debt], for he would be taking a [person’s] life in pledge.

⁷ “If a man is caught kidnapping any of his countrymen from the sons of Israel, and he treats him violently or sells him [as a slave], then that thief shall die. So you shall remove the evil from among you.

⁸ “Be careful during an outbreak of leprosy, that you diligently observe and do according to all that the Levitical priests teach you; just as I have commanded them, so you shall be careful to do.^{(A) 9} Remember [with thoughtful concern] what the Lord your God did to Miriam on the road as you came out of Egypt.^(B)

¹⁰ “When you lend your neighbor anything, you shall not go into his house to get his pledge (security deposit). ¹¹ You shall stand outside, and the man to whom you lend shall bring the pledge out to you. ¹² If the man is poor, you shall not keep his ^[i]pledge overnight. ¹³ You shall certainly restore the pledge (security deposit) to him at sunset, so that he may sleep in his garment and bless you; and it will be credited to you as righteousness (right standing) before the Lord your God.

¹⁴ “You shall not take advantage of a hired servant who is poor and needy, whether [he is] one of your countrymen or one of the strangers (resident aliens, foreigners) who is in your land inside your cities. ¹⁵ You shall give him his wages on the day that he earns them before the sun sets—for he is poor and is ^[j]counting on it—so that he does not cry out to the Lord against you, and it becomes a sin for you.

¹⁶ “The fathers shall not be put to death for [the sins of] their children, nor shall the children be put to death for their fathers; [only] for his own sin shall anyone be put to death.

¹⁷ “You shall not pervert the justice due a stranger or an orphan, nor seize (impound) a widow’s garment as security [for a loan]. ¹⁸ But you shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you from there; therefore I am commanding you to do this thing.

¹⁹ “^[k]When you reap your harvest in your field and have forgotten a sheaf [of grain] in the field, you shall not go back to get it; it shall be for the stranger, for the orphan, and for the widow, so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. ²⁰ When you beat [the olives off of] your olive tree, do not search through the branches again; [whatever is left] shall be for the stranger, for the orphan, and for the widow.

²¹ “When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, you shall not glean it afterward; it shall be for the stranger, for the orphan, and for the widow. ²² You shall [thoughtfully] remember [the fact] that you were a slave in the land of Egypt; therefore I am commanding you to do this thing.

Various Laws

25 “If there is a controversy between men, and they go to court, and the judges decide [the issue] between them, and they judge in favor of the innocent and condemn the guilty, ² then it shall be that if the guilty man deserves to be beaten, the judge shall make him lie down and be beaten in his presence with a [certain] number of stripes in proportion to his offense. ³ He may have him beaten forty times, but no more. He is not to be beaten with more stripes than these and he is not to be degraded [that is, treated like an animal] in your sight.

⁴ “You shall not muzzle the ox while he is threshing [to prevent him from eating any of the grain].^(C)

⁵ “If brothers are living together and one of them dies without a son, the widow of the deceased shall not be married outside the family to a stranger. Her husband’s brother shall be intimate with her after taking her as his wife and perform the duty of a husband’s brother to her. ⁶ It shall be that her firstborn [son] will ^[l]be given the name of the dead brother, so that his name will not be blotted out of Israel. ⁷ But if the man does not want to marry his brother’s [widowed] wife, then she shall go up to the gate [of the city, where court is held] to the elders, and say, ‘My brother-in-law refuses to continue his brother’s name in Israel; he is not willing to perform the duty of a husband’s brother.’ ⁸ Then the elders of his city will summon him and speak to him. And if he stands firm and says, ‘I do not want to marry her,’ ⁹ then his brother’s widow shall approach him in the presence of the elders, and pull his sandal off his foot and spit in his face; and she shall answer and say, ‘So it is done to that man who does not build up his brother’s household.’ ¹⁰ In Israel his [family] name shall be, ‘The house of him whose sandal was removed.’

¹¹ “If [two] men, a man and his countryman, are fighting and the wife of one approaches to rescue her husband from the man who is striking him, and she reaches out with her hand and grabs the aggressor’s genitals, ¹² then you shall cut off her hand; you shall not show pity [for her].

¹³ “You shall not have in your bag inaccurate weights, a heavy and a light [so you can cheat others]. ¹⁴ You shall not have in your house inaccurate measures, a large and a small. ¹⁵ You shall have a perfect (full) and just weight, and a perfect and just measure, so that your days may be long in the land which the Lord your God gives you. ¹⁶ For everyone who does such things, everyone who acts unjustly [without personal integrity] is utterly repulsive to the Lord your God.

¹⁷ “Remember what Amalek did to you along the road when you came from Egypt, ¹⁸ how he met you along the road and attacked all the stragglers at your rear when you were tired and weary; and he did not ^[m]fear God.^{(D) 19} Therefore when the Lord your God has given you rest from all your surrounding enemies, in the land which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance to possess, you shall wipe out the memory of Amalek from under heaven; you must not forget.