Old Testament

New Testament

Deuteronomy 22:1-19 New International Version (NIV)

1. If you see your fellow Israelite’s ox or sheep straying, do not ignore it but be sure to take it back to its owner.

2. If they do not live near you or if you do not know who owns it, take it home with you and keep it until they come looking for it. Then give it back.

3. Do the same if you find their donkey or cloak or anything else they have lost. Do not ignore it.

4. If you see your fellow Israelite’s donkey or ox fallen on the road, do not ignore it. Help the owner get it to its feet.

5. A woman must not wear men’s clothing, nor a man wear women’s clothing, for the Lord your God detests anyone who does this.

6. If you come across a bird’s nest beside the road, either in a tree or on the ground, and the mother is sitting on the young or on the eggs, do not take the mother with the young.

7. You may take the young, but be sure to let the mother go, so that it may go well with you and you may have a long life.

8. When you build a new house, make a parapet around your roof so that you may not bring the guilt of bloodshed on your house if someone falls from the roof.

9. Do not plant two kinds of seed in your vineyard; if you do, not only the crops you plant but also the fruit of the vineyard will be defiled.

10. Do not plow with an ox and a donkey yoked together.

11. Do not wear clothes of wool and linen woven together.

12. Make tassels on the four corners of the cloak you wear.

13. If a man takes a wife and, after sleeping with her, dislikes her

14. and slanders her and gives her a bad name, saying, “I married this woman, but when I approached her, I did not find proof of her virginity,”

15. then the young woman’s father and mother shall bring to the town elders at the gate proof that she was a virgin.

16. Her father will say to the elders, “I gave my daughter in marriage to this man, but he dislikes her.

17. Now he has slandered her and said, ‘I did not find your daughter to be a virgin.’ But here is the proof of my daughter’s virginity.” Then her parents shall display the cloth before the elders of the town,

18. and the elders shall take the man and punish him.

19. They shall fine him a hundred shekels of silver and give them to the young woman’s father, because this man has given an Israelite virgin a bad name. She shall continue to be his wife; he must not divorce her as long as he lives.

Read complete chapter Deuteronomy 22