20 “When you go out to fight your enemies and see horses, chariots and a force larger than yours, you are not to be afraid of them; because Adonai your God, who brought you up from the land of Egypt, is with you. ² When you are about to go into battle, the cohen is to come forward and address the people. ³ He should tell them, ‘Listen, Isra’el! You are about to do battle against your enemies. Don’t be fainthearted or afraid; don’t be alarmed or frightened by them; ⁴ because Adonai your God is going with you to fight on your behalf against your enemies and give you victory.’

⁵ “Then the officials will speak to the soldiers. They are to say, ‘Is there a man here who has built a new house, but hasn’t dedicated it yet? He should go back home now; otherwise he may die fighting, and another man will dedicate it.

⁶ “‘Is there a man here who has planted a vineyard, but hasn’t yet made use of its fruit? He should go back home; otherwise he may die fighting, and another man will use it.

⁷ “‘Is there a man here who is engaged to a woman, but hasn’t married her yet? He should go back home; otherwise he may die fighting, and another man will marry her.’

⁸ “The officials will then add to what they have said to the soldiers: ‘Is there a man here who is afraid and fainthearted? He should go back home; otherwise his fear may demoralize his comrades as well.’ ⁹ When the officials have finished speaking with the soldiers, commanders are to be appointed to lead the army.

(vii) ¹⁰ “When you advance on a town to attack it, first offer it terms for peace. ¹¹ If it accepts the terms for peace and opens its gates to you, then all the people there are to be put to forced labor and work for you. ¹² However, if they refuse to make peace with you but prefer to make war against you, you are to put it under siege. ¹³ When Adonai your God hands it over to you, you are to put every male to the sword. ¹⁴ However, you are to take as booty for yourself the women, the little ones, the livestock, and everything in the city — all its spoil. Yes, you will feed on your enemies’ spoil, which Adonai your God has given you. ¹⁵ This is what you are to do to all the towns which are at a great distance from you, which are not the towns of these nations.

¹⁶ “As for the towns of these peoples, which Adonai your God is giving you as your inheritance, you are not to allow anything that breathes to live. ¹⁷ Rather you must destroy them completely — the Hitti, the Emori, the Kena‘ani, the P’rizi, the Hivi and the Y’vusi — as Adonai your God has ordered you; ¹⁸ so that they won’t teach you to follow their abominable practices, which they do for their gods, thus causing you to sin against Adonai your God.

¹⁹ “When, in making war against a town in order to capture it, you lay siege to it for a long time, you are not to destroy its trees, cutting them down with an axe. You can eat their fruit, so don’t cut them down. After all, are the trees in the field human beings, so that you have to besiege them too? ²⁰ However, if you know that certain trees provide no food, you may destroy them and cut them down, in order to build siege-works against the town making war with you, until it falls.

21 “If, in the land Adonai your God is giving you to possess, a murder victim is found lying in the countryside; and the perpetrator of the murder is not known; ² then your leaders and judges are to go out and measure the distance between it and the surrounding towns. ³ After it has been determined which town is the closest, the leaders of that town are to take a young female cow that has never been put to work or yoked for use as a draft animal. ⁴ The leaders of that town are to bring the heifer down to a vadi with a stream in it that never dries up, to a place that is neither plowed nor sown; and they are to break the cow’s neck there in the vadi. ⁵ Then the cohanim, who are L’vi’im, are to approach; for Adonai your God has chosen them to serve him and to pronounce blessings in the name of Adonai; they will decide the outcome of every dispute and matter involving violence. ⁶ All the leaders of the town nearest the murder victim are to wash their hands over the cow whose neck was broken in the vadi. (Maftir) ⁷ Then they are to speak up and say, ‘This blood was not shed by our hands, nor have we seen who did it. ⁸ Adonai, forgive your people Isra’el, whom you redeemed; do not allow innocent blood to be shed among your people Isra’el.’ And they will be forgiven this bloodshed. ⁹ Thus you will banish the shedding of innocent blood from among you, by doing what Adonai sees as right.

Haftarah Shof’tim: Yesha‘yahu (Isaiah) 51:12–52:12 [Messianic adaptation: conclude the reading at 53:12]

B’rit Hadashah suggested readings for Parashah Shof’tim: Mattityahu (Matthew) 5:38–42; 18:15–20; Acts 3:13–26; 7:35–53; 1 Corinthians 5:9–13; 1 Timothy 5:17–22; Messianic Jews (Hebrews) 10:28–31

Parashah 49: Ki Tetze (When you go out) 21:10 –25:19

¹⁰ “When you go out to war against your enemies, and Adonai your God hands them over to you, and you take prisoners, ¹¹ and you see among the prisoners a woman who looks good to you, and you feel attracted to her and want her as your wife; ¹² you are to bring her home to your house, where she will shave her head, cut her fingernails ¹³ and remove her prison clothing. She will stay there in your house, mourning her father and mother for a full month; after which you may go in to have sexual relations with her and be her husband, and she will be your wife. ¹⁴ In the event that you lose interest in her, you are to let her go wherever she wishes; but you may not sell her for money or treat her like a slave, because you humiliated her.

¹⁵ “If a man has two wives, the one loved and the other unloved, and both the loved and unloved wives have borne him children, and if the firstborn son is the child of the unloved wife; ¹⁶ then, when it comes time for him to pass his inheritance on to his sons, he may not give the inheritance due the firstborn to the son of the loved wife in place of the son of the unloved one, who is in fact the firstborn. ¹⁷ No, he must acknowledge as firstborn the son of the unloved wife by giving him a double portion of everything he owns, for he is the firstfruits of his manhood, and the right of the firstborn is his.

¹⁸ “If a man has a stubborn, rebellious son who will not obey what his father or mother says, and even after they discipline him he still refuses to pay attention to them; ¹⁹ then his father and mother are to take hold of him and bring him out to the leaders of his town, at the gate of that place, ²⁰ and say to the leaders of his town, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious, he doesn’t pay attention to us, lives wildly, gets drunk.’ ²¹ Then all the men of his town are to stone him to death; in this way you will put an end to such wickedness among you, and all Isra’el will hear about it and be afraid.

(ii) ²² “If someone has committed a capital crime and is put to death, then hung on a tree, ²³ his body is not to remain all night on the tree, but you must bury him the same day, because a person who has been hanged has been cursed by God — so that you will not defile your land, which Adonai your God is giving you to inherit.

22 “You are not to watch your brother’s ox or sheep straying and behave as if you hadn’t seen it; you must bring them back to your brother. ² If your brother is not close by, or you don’t know who the owner is, you are to bring it home to your house; and it will remain with you until your brother asks for it; then you are to give it back to him. ³ You are to do the same with his donkey, his coat or anything else of your brother’s that he loses. If you find something he lost, you must not ignore it.

⁴ “If you see your brother’s donkey or ox collapsed on the road, you may not behave as if you hadn’t seen it; you must help him get them up on their feet again.

⁵ “A woman is not to wear men’s clothing, and a man is not to put on women’s clothing, for whoever does these things is detestable to Adonai your God.

⁶ “If, as you are walking along, you happen to see a bird’s nest in a tree or on the ground with chicks or eggs, and the mother bird is sitting on the chicks or the eggs, you are not to take the mother with the chicks. ⁷ You must let the mother go, but you may take the chicks for yourself; so that things will go well with you, and you will prolong your life.

(iii) ⁸ “When you build a new house, you must build a low wall around your roof; otherwise someone may fall from it, and you will be responsible for his death.

⁹ “You are not to sow two kinds of seed between your rows of vines; if you do, both the two harvested crops and the yield from the vines must be forfeited. ¹⁰ You are not to plow with an ox and a donkey together. ¹¹ You are not to wear clothing woven with two kinds of thread, wool and linen together.

¹² “You are to make for yourself twisted cords on the four corners of the garment you wrap around yourself.

¹³ “If a man marries a woman, has sexual relations with her and then, having come to dislike her, ¹⁴ brings false charges against her and defames her character by saying, ‘I married this woman, but when I had intercourse with her I did not find evidence that she was a virgin’; ¹⁵ then the girl’s father and mother are to take the evidence of the girl’s virginity to the leaders of the town at the gate. ¹⁶ The girl’s father will say to the leaders, ‘I let my daughter marry this man, but he hates her, ¹⁷ so he has brought false charges that he didn’t find evidence of her virginity; yet here is the evidence of my daughter’s virginity’ — ^{(18 )} and they will lay the cloth before the town leaders. ^18 (19) The leaders of that town are to take the man, punish him, ¹⁹ and fine him two-and-a-half pounds of silver shekels, which they will give to the girl’s father, because he has publicly defamed a virgin of Isra’el. She will remain his wife, and he is forbidden from divorcing her as long as he lives.

²⁰ “But if the charge is substantiated that evidence for the girl’s virginity could not be found; ²¹ then they are to lead the girl to the door of her father’s house, and the men of her town will stone her to death, because she has committed in Isra’el the disgraceful act of being a prostitute while still in her father’s house. In this way you will put an end to such wickedness among you.

²² “If a man is found sleeping with a woman who has a husband, both of them must die — the man who went to bed with the woman and the woman too. In this way you will expel such wickedness from Isra’el.

²³ “If a girl who is a virgin is engaged to a man, and another man comes upon her in the town and has sexual relations with her; ²⁴ you are to bring them both out to the gate of the city and stone them to death — the girl because she didn’t cry out for help, there in the city, and the man because he has humiliated his neighbor’s wife. In this way you will put an end to such wickedness among you.

²⁵ “But if the man comes upon the engaged girl out in the countryside, and the man grabs her and has sexual relations with her, then only the man who had intercourse with her is to die. ²⁶ You will do nothing to the girl, because she has done nothing deserving of death. The situation is like the case of the man who attacks his neighbor and kills him. ²⁷ For he found her in the countryside, and the engaged girl cried out, but there was no one to save her.

²⁸ “If a man comes upon a girl who is a virgin but who is not engaged, and he grabs her and has sexual relations with her, and they are caught in the act, ²⁹ then the man who had intercourse with her must give to the girl’s father one-and-a-quarter pounds of silver shekels, and she will become his wife, because he humiliated her; he may not divorce her as long as he lives.