Bible Verses About Government

then your leaders and judges are to go out and measure the distance between it and the surrounding towns.

After it has been determined which town is the closest, the leaders of that town are to take a young female cow that has never been put to work or yoked for use as a draft animal.

The leaders of that town are to bring the heifer down to a vadi with a stream in it that never dries up, to a place that is neither plowed nor sown; and they are to break the cow's neck there in the vadi.

Then the cohanim, who are L'vi'im, are to approach; for ADONAI your God has chosen them to serve him and to pronounce blessings in the name of ADONAI; they will decide the outcome of every dispute and matter involving violence.

All the leaders of the town nearest the murder victim are to wash their hands over the cow whose neck was broken in the vadi.

Then they are to speak up and say, 'This blood was not shed by our hands, nor have we seen who did it.

ADONAI, forgive your people Isra'el, whom you redeemed; do not allow innocent blood to be shed among your people Isra'el.' And they will be forgiven this bloodshed.

"If a man has a stubborn, rebellious son who will not obey what his father or mother says, and even after they discipline him he still refuses to pay attention to them;

then his father and mother are to take hold of him and bring him out to the leaders of his town, at the gate of that place,

and say to the leaders of his town, 'This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious, he doesn't pay attention to us, lives wildly, gets drunk.'

Then all the men of his town are to stone him to death; in this way you will put an end to such wickedness among you, and all Isra'el will hear about it and be afraid.

"If a man marries a woman, has sexual relations with her and then, having come to dislike her,

brings false charges against her and defames her character by saying, 'I married this woman, but when I had intercourse with her I did not find evidence that she was a virgin';

then the girl's father and mother are to take the evidence of the girl's virginity to the leaders of the town at the gate.

The girl's father will say to the leaders, 'I let my daughter marry this man, but he hates her,

so he has brought false charges that he didn't find evidence of her virginity; yet here is the evidence of my daughter's virginity'-(

)and they will lay the cloth before the town leaders.

The leaders of that town are to take the man, punish him, and fine him two-and-a-half pounds of silver shekels, which they will give to the girl's father, because he has publicly defamed a virgin of Isra'el. She will remain his wife, and he is forbidden from divorcing her as long as he lives.

"But if the charge is substantiated that evidence for the girl's virginity could not be found;

then they are to lead the girl to the door of her father's house, and the men of her town will stone her to death, because she has committed in Isra'el the disgraceful act of being a prostitute while still in her father's house. In this way you will put an end to such wickedness among you.

If the man does not wish to marry his brother's widow, then his brother's widow is to go up to the gate, to the leaders, and say, 'My brother-in-law refuses to raise up for his brother a name in Isra'el; he will not perform the duty of a husband's brother for me.'

The leaders of his town are to summon him and speak to him. If, on appearing before them, he continues to say, 'I don't want to marry her,'

then his brother's widow is to approach him in the presence of the leaders, pull his sandal off his foot, spit in his face and say, 'This is what is done to the man who refuses to build up his brother's family.'

he captured a young man from Sukkot and asked him about the chiefs and leaders of Sukkot; he wrote down for him the names of seventy-seven of them.

Then he came to the people of Sukkot and said: "You insulted me when you said, 'You haven't captured Zevach and Tzalmuna yet, so why should we give bread to your exhausted men?' Well, here are Zevach and Tzalmuna!"