Episode 74: Non-virgin brides, rape, and damaged testicles

(Deuteronomy 22-23)

Help your neighbor

22 ¹ If you see your brother's ox or sheep go astray, bring them back to him.

³ If he loses something, return it to him.

⁴ And if his donkey or ox falls down, lift it up again.

Roofs, baby birds, and cross dressing

⁵ Women may not wear men’s clothes, and vice versa. Whoever does so is an abomination to God.

⁶ If you find a bird's nest with a mother bird and her eggs or young birds, don't take them all. Take the young birds, but let the mother go.

If you do that, all will be well with you and you'll live a long life.

⁸ When you're building a new house, put a wall on the edge of the roof, so you won't be to blame if someone falls off.

Don't mix things

⁹ When you plant a vineyard, don't use more than one kind of seed, or your grapes will be defiled.

¹⁰ Don't plow with an ox and an donkey together.

¹² Put fringes on the four corners of your garments.

Non-virgin brides must be stoned to death

¹³ If a man gets married, has sex with his wife, and then hates her and says,

¹⁴ I took this woman, and when I had sex with her, I found out that she wasn't a virgin.

^15-16 Then the woman's father and mother will bring the tokens of their daughters virginity to the city elders, and say to them:

¹⁷ These are the tokens of my daughter's virginity.

And they shall spread the cloth in front of the elders.

^18-19 The elders will chastise the man and make him pay one hundred shekels of silver to his wife's father. And the woman shall be the man's wife for the rest of his life.

²⁰ But if the woman's tokens of virginity cannot be found, ²¹ she will be brought to her father's house, and all the men of the city will stone her to death. Because she has played the whore in her father's house.

Rape (married or virgin, city or country)

²² If a man has sex with a woman who is married to another man, kill them both.

^23-24 If a man finds an engaged woman in the city and rapes her, stone them both to death.

The woman, because she didn't cry out loudly enough (being in the city), and the man because he humbled his neighbor's wife.

²⁵ If a man finds an engaged woman in the country and rapes her, stone the man to death but not the woman.

^26-27 The woman should not be stoned, because no one could hear her cry out in the country.

²⁸ If a man finds a woman who isn’t engaged and rapes her, ²⁹ he must pay her father fifty shekels of silver and then marry the woman that he raped.

³⁰ A man must not have sex with his father's wife, or discover his father's skirt.

The congregation of the Lord

23 ¹ A man with wounded testicles or an amputated penis shall not enter God's congregation.

² A bastard shall not enter God's congregation, even to his tenth generation.

³ Because the Moabites hired Balaam to curse God, an Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter God's congregation, even to his tenth generation. ⁴ But God wouldn't listen to Balaam and turned his curse into a blessing.

⁶ Don't ever seek the peace or prosperity of the Moabites.

⁷ Don't abhor Edomites, because they are your relatives. Don't abhor Egyptians, because you were a stranger in the land of Egypt. ⁸ Their children may enter the congregation in their third generation.

Personal hygiene: Wet dreams and defecation

⁹ When you go to war, keep away from wicked things.

^10-11 If a man is unclean because of something that happens to him at night, he shall wash himself with water.

¹³ Put a paddle on your weapon and use it to cover your feces when you defecate.

¹⁴ Because God walks through the camp. And if he happens to see some unholy unclean thing, he might turn and walk away from you and no longer fight for you against your enemies.

Runaway slaves

¹⁵ Don't return runaway slaves to their masters. ¹⁶ Let them live with you in peace and freedom.

Whores and sodomites

¹⁷ Don't bring any whore, sodomite, or dog into the house of God.

¹⁸ For these things are an abomination to God.

Vows and usury

¹⁹ Don't charge unreasonably high interest when you loan money to another Hebrew. ²⁰ But usury is okay when you do it to strangers.

²¹ If you make a vow to God, you must keep it.