Deuteronomy, Chapter 21:

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Verses from Deuteronomy, Chapter 19 of the Book of Deuteronomy of the Bible.

Acquittal for incognito murder

1. “If anyone is found dead in the fields, in the land that the Lord your God has given you as an inheritance, and it is not known who killed him,
2. the authorities and judges will go out and measure the distance to the neighboring cities.
3. Then the authorities of the city closest to the body will take a heifer that has never been worked or used to work the land
4. and they will take her to an uninhabited valley, where there is a stream of perennial waters. There they will break the heifer's neck.
5. The priests, descendants of Levi, will approach, as the Lord, their God, chose them to minister in his name and bless the people of Israel, in addition to resolving disputes and cases of violence.
6. Then all the authorities in the city closest to the body will wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the valley,
7. and they will say, 'Our hands did not shed this blood, nor did our eyes see who did it.
8. O Lord, accept this atonement in favor of your people Israel, which you redeemed, and do not hold your people guilty for the innocent blood shed.' Thus the sin of bloodshed will be atoned for.
9. In this way you will remove from yourselves the guilt of shedding innocent blood by doing what is right in the eyes of the Lord.

10. “When you go out to war against your enemies, and the Lord your God delivers them into your hands, and you take them captive,
11. if you notice one among the captured women that you like and want to take her as a wife,
12. bring her to your house. She'll shave her head, cut her nails
13. and will take off the clothes in which she was captured. She will stay in her house, mourning the death of her father and mother for a whole month. After that, you can approach her and become her husband, and she will be your wife.
14. However, if afterward you no longer like her, let her go wherever she pleases. You are not allowed to sell her into slavery as you have dishonored her.

15. “If a man has two wives, and he prefers one of them, and they both bear him children, but the eldest son is the son of the wife he does not prefer,
16. when distributing the inheritance among his children, he cannot favor the son of the preferred wife to the detriment of the eldest son, who is the son of the wife he does not prefer.
17. He must recognize as his firstborn the son of the wife he does not prefer, giving him a double portion of all the goods he possesses. This son is the beginning of his strength; It is the right of the firstborn.

18. “If a man has a rebellious and stubborn son, who does not obey his father or his mother, and does not listen to them even when they discipline him,
19. His father and his mother will take him to the leaders of the city, to the city gate,
20. and they will say to the elders, 'This son of ours is rebellious and stubborn; Don't obey us! He's a profligate and a drunkard.'
21. Then all the men in the city will stone him to death. Remove evil from among you, and all Israel will know it and be afraid.

22. “If someone is guilty of a crime that deserves the death penalty and is executed, and the body is hung on a pole,
23. do not leave the body there overnight; bury him on the same day, for anyone who is hung on a pole is cursed by God. Do not profane the land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance.