Deuteronomy 21

If someone slain is found lying in the field, in the land the LORD your God is giving you to possess, and it is not known who struck him, then your elders and judges shall go out and measure the distance to the cities around the slain man. The elders of the city nearest to the slain man shall take a heifer that has not been worked and has not pulled in a yoke. The elders of that city shall bring the heifer down to a valley with an ever-flowing stream, where the ground is neither worked nor sown, and there in the valley they shall break the heifer’s neck. The priests, the sons of Levi, shall approach, for the LORD your God has chosen them to serve him and to bless in the name of the LORD, and by their word every dispute and every case of injury shall be decided. All the elders of that city nearest to the slain man shall wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the valley. They shall declare, ‘Our hands have not shed this blood, nor have our eyes seen it. Forgive your people Israel, whom you have redeemed, O LORD, and do not lay the guilt of innocent blood upon your people Israel.’ Thus the guilt of that blood shall be atoned for them. You shall purge the guilt of innocent blood from among you when you do what is right in the eyes of the LORD. When you go out to war against your enemies and the LORD your God gives them into your hand, and you take captives from them, and you see among the captives a woman beautiful in form, desire her, and take her for yourself as a wife, then bring her into your house. She shall shave her head and trim her nails. She shall take off the clothing of her captivity, remain in your house, and mourn her father and mother for a full month. After that you may go in to her and be her husband, and she shall be your wife. But if you have no delight in her, let her go free. You shall certainly not sell her for money or treat her as a slave, because you have humiliated her. If a man has two wives, one loved and the other hated, and both the loved and the hated bear him sons, and the firstborn son belongs to the hated wife, then on the day he gives his sons their inheritance from what he has, he may not make the son of the loved wife firstborn over the son of the hated wife, who is the firstborn. He shall acknowledge the firstborn, the son of the hated wife, by giving him a double portion of all he has, for he is the first of his strength. The right of the firstborn is his. If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not listen to the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and though they discipline him he does not listen to them, then his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city, to the gate of the place where he lives. They shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He does not listen to our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.’ Then all the men of his city shall stone him to death. So you shall purge the evil from among you, and all Israel shall hear and fear. If a man has committed a sin deserving a sentence of death, and he is put to death and you hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain on the tree overnight. You shall surely bury him that same day, for a hanged man is cursed by God. You shall not defile your land that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance.

Rights and attribution