Deuteronomy 21

1 If one be found slain in the land which the LORD your God gives you to possess it, lying in the field, and it isn't known who has struck him;

2 then your elders and your judges shall come forth, and they shall measure to the cities which are around him who is slain:

3 and it shall be, that the city which is nearest to the slain man, even the elders of that city shall take a heifer of the herd, which hasn't been worked with, and which has not drawn in the yoke;

4 and the elders of that city shall bring down the heifer to a valley with running water, which is neither plowed nor sown, and shall break the heifer's neck there in the valley.

5 The cohanim the sons of Levi shall come near; for them the LORD your God has chosen to minister to him, and to bless in the name of the LORD; and according to their word shall every controversy and every stroke be.

6 All the elders of that city, who are nearest to the slain man, shall wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the valley;

7 and they shall answer and say, "Our hands have not shed this blood, neither have our eyes seen it.

8 Forgive, LORD, your people Israel, whom you have redeemed, and do not allow innocent blood in the midst of your people Israel." The blood shall be forgiven them.

9 So you shall put away the innocent blood from the midst of you, when you shall do that which is right in the eyes of the LORD.

10 When you go forth to battle against your enemies, and the LORD your God delivers them into your hands, and you carry them away captive,

11 and see among the captives a beautiful woman, and you desire to take her to be your wife;

12 then you shall bring her home to your house; and she shall shave her head, and trim her nails;

13 and she shall remove the clothing she was wearing when captured, and shall remain in your house, and mourn her father and her mother a full month. And after that you may go in to her and be her husband, and she shall be your wife.

14 It shall be, if you are not pleased with her, then you must let her go where she wants; but you may not sell her for money or treat her as a commodity, since you have had relations with her.

15 If a man has two wives, the one loved, and the other unloved, and they have borne him children, both the loved and the unloved; and if the firstborn son is hers who was unloved;

16 then it shall be, in the day that he causes his sons to inherit that which he has, that he may not make the son of the loved the firstborn before the son of the unloved, who is the firstborn:

17 but he shall acknowledge the firstborn, the son of the unloved, by giving him a double portion of all that he has; for he is the beginning of his strength; the right of the firstborn is his.

18 If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, who will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and, though they chasten him, will not listen to them;

19 then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out to the elders of his city, and to the gate of his place;

20 and they shall tell the elders of his city, "This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard."

21 All the men of his city shall stone him to death with stones: so you shall put away the evil from the midst of you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear.

22 If a man have committed a sin worthy of death, and he be put to death, and you hang him on a tree;

23 his body shall not remain all night on the tree, but you shall surely bury him the same day; for everyone who hangs on a tree is cursed by God; that you do not defile your land which the LORD your God gives you for an inheritance.