21:18. If a man have a stubborn and unruly son, who will not hear the commandments of his father or mother, and being corrected, slighteth obedience:
21:19. They shall take him and bring him to the ancients of the city, and to the gate of judgment,
21:20. And shall say to them: This our son is rebellious and stubborn, he slighteth hearing our admonitions, he giveth himself to revelling, and to debauchery and banquetings:
21:21. The people of the city shall stone him: and he shall die, that you may take away the evil out of the midst of you, and all Israel hearing it may be afraid.
21:22. When a man hath committed a crime for which he is to be punished with death, and being condemned to die is hanged on a gibbet:
21:23. His body shall not remain upon the tree, but shall be buried the same day: for he is accursed of G.o.d that hangeth on a tree: and thou shalt not defile thy land, which the Lord thy G.o.d shall give thee in possession.
Deuteronomy Chapter 22
Humanity towards neighbours. Neither s.e.x may use the apparel of the other. Cruelty to be avoided even to birds. Battlements about the roof of a house. Things of divers kinds not to be mixed. The punishment of him that slandereth his wife, as also of adultery and rape.
22:1. Thou shalt not pa.s.s by if thou seest thy brother"s ox, or his sheep go astray: but thou shalt bring them back to thy brother.
22:2. And if thy brother be not nigh, or thou know him not: thou shalt bring them to thy house, and they shall be with thee until thy brother seek them, and receive them.
22:3. Thou shalt do in like manner with his a.s.s, and with his raiment, and with every thing that is thy brother"s, which is lost: if thou find it, neglect it not as pertaining to another.
22:4. If thou see thy brother"s a.s.s or his ox to be fallen down in the way, thou shalt not slight it, but shalt lift it up with him.
22:5. A woman shall not be clothed with man"s apparel, neither shall a man use woman"s apparel: for he that doth these things is abominable before G.o.d.
22:6. If thou find as thou walkest by the way, a bird"s nest in a tree, or on the ground, and the dam sitting upon the young or upon the eggs: thou shalt not take her with her young:
Thou shalt not take, etc. This was to shew them to exercise a certain mercy even to irrational creatures; and by that means to train them up to a horror of cruelty; and to the exercise of humanity and mutual charity one to another.
22:7. But shalt let her go, keeping the young which thou hast caught: that it may be well with thee, and thou mayst live a long time.
22:8. When thou buildest a new house, thou shalt make a battlement to the roof round about: lest blood be shed in thy house, and thou be guilty, if any one slip, and fall down headlong.
Battlement... This precaution was necessary, because all their houses had flat tops, and it was usual to walk and to converse together upon them.
22:9. Thou shalt not sow thy vineyard with divers seeds: lest both the seed which thou hast sown, and the fruit of the vineyard, be sanctified together.
22:10. Thou shalt not plough with an ox and an a.s.s together.
22:11. Thou shalt not wear a garment that is woven of woollen and linen together.
22:12. Thou shalt make strings in the hem at the four corners of thy cloak, wherewith thou shalt be covered.
22:13. If a man marry a wife, and afterwards hate her,
22:14. And seek occasions to put her away, laying to her charge a very ill name, and say: I took this woman to wife, and going in to her, I found her not a virgin:
22:15. Her father and mother shall take her, and shall bring with them the tokens of her virginity to the ancients of the city that are in the gate:
22:16. And the father shall say: I gave my daughter unto this man to wife: and because he hateth her,
22:17. He layeth to her charge a very ill name, so as to say: I found not thy daughter a virgin: and behold these are the tokens of my daughter"s virginity. And they shall spread the cloth before the ancients of the city:
22:18. And the ancients of that city shall take that man, and beat him,
22:19. Condemning him besides in a hundred sicles of silver, which he shall give to the damsel"s father, because he hath defamed by a very ill name a virgin of Israel: and he shall have her to wife, and may not put her away all the days of his life.
22:20. But if what he charged her with be true, and virginity be not found in the damsel:
22:21. They shall cast her out of the doors of her father"s house, and the men of the city shall stone her to death, and she shall die: because she hath done a wicked thing in Israel, to play the wh.o.r.e in her father"s house: and thou shalt take away the evil out of the midst of thee.
22:22. If a man lie with another man"s wife, they shall both die, that is to say, the adulterer and the adulteress: and thou shalt take away the evil out of Israel.
22:23. If a man have espoused a damsel that is a virgin, and some one find her in the city, and lie with her,
22:24. Thou shalt bring them both out to the gate of that city, and they shall be stoned: the damsel, because she cried not out, being in the city: the man, because he hath humbled his neighbour"s wife. And thou shalt take away the evil from the midst of thee.
22:25. But if a man find a damsel that is betrothed, in the field, and taking hold of her, lie with her, he alone shall die:
22:26. The damsel shall suffer nothing, neither is she guilty of death: for as a robber riseth against his brother, and taketh away his life, so also did the damsel suffer:
22:27. She was alone in the field: she cried, and there was no man to help her.
22:28. If a man find a damsel that is a virgin, who is not espoused, and taking her, lie with her, and the matter come to judgment:
22:29. He that lay with her shall give to the father of the maid fifty sicles of silver, and shall have her to wife, because he hath humbled her: he may not put her away all the days of his life.
22:30. No man shall take his father"s wife, nor remove his covering.
Deuteronomy Chapter 23
Who may and who may not enter into the church: uncleanness to be avoided: other precepts concerning fugitives, fornication, usury, vows, and eating other men"s grapes and corn.
23:1. An eunuch, whose t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es are broken or cut away, or yard cut off, shall not enter into the church of the Lord.
Eunuch... By these are meant, in the spiritual sense, such as are barren in good works. Ibid. Into the church... That is, into the a.s.sembly or congregation of Israel, so as to have the privilege of an Israelite, or to be capable of any place or office among the people of G.o.d.
23:2. A mamzer, that is to say, one born of a prost.i.tute, shall not enter into the church of the Lord, until the tenth generation.
23:3. The Ammonite and the Moabite, even after the tenth generation shall not enter into the church of the Lord for ever:
23:4. Because they would not meet you with bread and water in the way, when you came out of Egypt: and because they hired against thee Balaam, the son of Beor, from Mesopotamia in Syria, to curse thee.
23:5. And the Lord thy G.o.d would not hear Balaam, and he turned his cursing into thy blessing, because he loved thee.
23:6. Thou shalt not make peace with them, neither shalt thou seek their prosperity all the days of thy life for ever.
23:7. Thou shalt not abhor the Edomite, because he is thy brother: nor the Egyptian, because thou wast a stranger in his land.