Deuteronomy 22

Lost animals, mixed kinds, and a roof’s parapet

1If you see your brother’s ox or sheep straying, do not ignore it; be sure to bring it back to your brother. 2If your brother does not live near you, or you do not know who he is, take the animal home with you and keep it until he comes looking for it, and then return it to him. 3Do the same for his donkey, for his garment, or for anything your brother has lost and you have found. You must not ignore it. 4If you see your brother’s donkey or ox fallen on the road, do not ignore it; be sure to help him get it back on its feet. 5A woman must not wear a man’s garment, nor a man put on a woman’s clothing, for whoever does this is detestable to Yahweh your God. 6If you come across a bird’s nest beside the road, in a tree or on the ground, with chicks or eggs and the mother sitting on them, do not take the mother along with the young. 7Let the mother go, and take only the young, so that it may go well with you and you may live long. 8When you build a new house, put a parapet around your roof, so that you do not bring bloodguilt on your house if someone falls from it. 9Do not plant your vineyard with two kinds of seed, or the entire yield — the crop you plant together with the produce of the vineyard — will be forfeited. 10Do not plow with an ox and a donkey yoked together. 11Do not wear clothing woven of wool and linen together. 12Make tassels on the four corners of the cloak you wear.

A bride’s virginity disputed

13If a man marries a woman, sleeps with her, and then turns against her, 14and accuses her of shameful conduct and gives her a bad name, saying, “I married this woman, but when I approached her, I did not find proof of her virginity,” 15then the young woman’s father and mother are to bring the proof of her virginity to the city elders at the gate. 16Her father is to say to the elders, “I gave my daughter in marriage to this man, and now he has turned against her. 17He has accused her of shameful conduct, saying, I did not find proof of your daughter’s virginity — but here is the proof.” Then they are to spread out the cloth before the city elders. 18The elders of that city are to take the man and punish him. 19They are to fine him a hundred pieces of silver and give them to the young woman’s father, because he gave a virgin of Israel a bad name. She is to remain his wife; he may not divorce her as long as he lives. 20But if the accusation is true and no proof of the young woman’s virginity is found, 21she is to be brought to the door of her father’s house, and the men of her city are to stone her to death, because she has done a disgraceful thing in Israel, playing the prostitute while still in her father’s house. You must purge the evil from among you.

Adultery and assault

22If a man is discovered sleeping with another man’s wife, both of them — the man and the woman — must die. You must purge the evil from Israel. 23If a young woman who is a virgin is pledged to be married, and a man encounters her in the city and sleeps with her, 24bring them both to the gate of that city and stone them to death — the young woman because she did not cry out for help though she was in the city, and the man because he violated his neighbor’s fiancée. You must purge the evil from among you. 25But if the man encounters the pledged young woman out in the country, and he seizes her and sleeps with her, only the man who did this is to die. 26Do nothing to the young woman; she has committed no offense deserving death. This case is just like one in which a man attacks his neighbor and murders him, 27for he found her out in the country, and though the pledged young woman screamed, there was no one to rescue her. 28If a man comes upon a young woman who is a virgin but is not pledged to be married, and he seizes her and sleeps with her, and they are discovered, 29he must pay her father fifty pieces of silver, and she is to become his wife because he violated her; he may not divorce her as long as he lives.