1If someone is found slain, lying in a field in the land the LORD your God is giving you to possess, and it is not known who killed them,
2your elders and judges shall go out and measure the distance from the body to the neighboring towns.
3Then the elders of the town nearest the body shall take a heifer that has never been worked — never worn a yoke —
4and lead it down to a valley with a flowing stream where the ground has never been plowed or planted, and break the heifer's neck there in the valley.
5The Levitical priests shall step forward, for the LORD your God has chosen them to minister and to pronounce blessings in the LORD's name, and to decide all cases of dispute and assault.
6Then all the elders of the town nearest the body shall wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the valley,
7and they shall declare: 'Our hands did not shed this blood, nor did our eyes see it done.
8Accept this atonement, LORD, for your people Israel, whom you have redeemed. Do not hold your people guilty for the blood of an innocent person.' And the bloodshed will be atoned for.
9So you will purge from yourselves the guilt of shedding innocent blood, since you have done what is right in the eyes of the LORD.
10When you go to war against your enemies and the LORD your God delivers them into your hands and you take captives,
11if you notice among the captives a beautiful woman and you are attracted to her and want to take her as your wife,
12bring her into your home and have her shave her head, trim her nails,
13and take off the clothes she was wearing when captured. She shall stay in your house and mourn her father and mother for a full month. After that, you may go to her and be her husband, and she shall be your wife.
14If you are not pleased with her, let her go wherever she wishes. You must not sell her or treat her as a slave, since you have dishonored her.
15If a man has two wives, and he loves one but not the other, and both bear him sons, but the firstborn is the son of the wife he does not love,
16when he wills his property to his sons, he must not give the rights of the firstborn to the son of the wife he loves in preference to his actual firstborn, the son of the wife he does not love.
17He must acknowledge the son of his unloved wife as the firstborn by giving him a double share of all he has. That son is the first sign of his father's strength. The right of the firstborn belongs to him.
18If someone has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him,
19his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town.
20They shall say to the elders, 'This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.'
21Then all the men of his town shall stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you. All Israel will hear and be afraid.
22If someone is guilty of a capital offense and is put to death, and you hang him on a pole,
23do not leave the body hanging on the pole overnight. Be sure to bury him that same day, because anyone who is hung on a pole is under God's curse. You must not desecrate the land the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance.