An Unsolved Killing

1 When in the land which the Lord your God gives you to inherit someone is found killed, lying in the field, and it is not known who has killed him, 2 then your elders and judges shall come out and measure to the cities that surround the dead man; 3 and the elders of the city that is nearest to the dead man shall take a heifer of the herd which has not been worked with, nor has pulled a load under a yoke. 4 And the elders of that city shall bring the heifer down to an uncultivated valley which has not been plowed or sown, and there break the heifer's neck in the field. 5 And the priests the sons of Levi shall go near, for the Lord your God has chosen them to serve Him, and to bless in the Name of the Lord, and every dispute or case of leprous disease shall be decided by their ruling; 6 and all the elders of that city which is nearest to the dead man shall wash their hands over the heifer which has been killed in the field; 7 and shall answer and say, Our hands have not shed this blood, and our eyes have not seen. 8 And the priests shall say, Forgive Your people Israel whom You, Lord, have redeemed, and do not let the guilt of innocent blood be among Your people Israel. And it shall be forgiven them concerning the blood: 9 you shall remove the guilt of innocent blood from among you, when you shall do that which is right before the Lord.

Captive Women and Family Rights

10 When you go out to war against your enemies, and the Lord your God delivers them into your hand, and you take them captive; 11 and you see among the captives a beautiful woman, and have a desire for her, and wish to marry her; 12 then you shall bring her into your house, and she shall shave her head, and let her nails grow, 13 and take off the clothes she wore when captured, and live in your house, and mourn for her father and mother a full month; and afterward you may go to her and marry her, and she shall be your wife. 14 But if you are not pleased with her, then you may let her go free: you shall by no means sell her for money, nor treat her as a slave, for you have humiliated her. 15 If a man has two wives, the one beloved and the other hated, and they have borne sons, the beloved one and the hated one, and the firstborn son belongs to the hated; 16 then when he distributes his inheritance to his sons, he shall not treat the beloved wife's son as firstborn in place of the hated wife's son, the actual firstborn. 17 For he shall acknowledge the hated wife's son as the firstborn by giving him a double share of all his possessions; for he is the beginning of his strength, and to him belongs the birthright. 18 If a man has a son defiant and rebellious, who will not obey the word of his father or his mother, and, though they instruct him, will not listen to them; 19 then his father and mother shall take hold of him, and bring him out before the elders of his city at the gate of the court of his place, 20 and shall say to the elders of the city, This son of ours is defiant and rebellious; he will not obey our words, he is a glutton and a drunkard: 21 then all the men of the city shall stone him with stones, so that he dies; and you shall remove the evildoer from among you, and all Israel will hear, and be afraid.

Burial after Execution

22 When a man guilty of a capital offense is put to death, and you have hanged him on a gallows; 23 his body shall not remain upon the gallows, but you shall certainly bury him on that day: for he was hanged because he had sinned before the Lord;⁠a and your land which the Lord your God has given you to inherit shall not be defiled.