Bible Verses About Government

Thy ancients and judges shall go out, and shall measure from the place where the body lieth the distance of every city round about:

And the ancients of that city which they shall perceive to be nearer than the rest, shall take a heifer of the herd, that hath not drawn in the yoke, nor ploughed the ground,

And they shall bring her into a rough and stony valley, that never was ploughed, nor sown: and there they shall strike off the head of the heifer:

And the priests the sons of Levi shall come, whom the Lord thy God hath chosen to minister to him, and to bless in his name, and that by their word every matter should be decided, and whatsoever is clean or unclean should be judged.

And the ancients of that city shall come to the person slain, and shall wash their hands over the heifer that was killed in the valley,

And shall say: Our hands did not shed this blood, nor did our eyes see it.

Be merciful to thy people Israel, whom thou hast redeemed, O Lord, and lay not innocent blood to their charge, in the midst of thy people Israel. And the guilt of blood shall be taken from them:

If a man have a stubborn and unruly son, who will not hear the commandments of his father or mother, and being corrected, slighteth obedience:

They shall take him and bring him to the ancients of the city, and to the gate of judgment,

And shall say to them: This our son is rebellious and stubborn, he slighteth hearing our admonitions, he giveth himself to revelling, and to debauchery and banquetings:

The people of the city shall stone him: and he shall die, that you may take away the evil out of the midst of you, and all Israel hearing it may be afraid.

If a man marry a wife, and afterwards hate her,

And seek occasions to put her away, laying to her charge a very ill name, and say: I took this woman to wife, and going in to her, I found her not a virgin:

Her father and mother shall take her, and shall bring with them the tokens of her virginity to the ancients of the city that are in the gate:

And the father shall say: I gave my daughter unto this man to wife: and because he hateth her,

He layeth to her charge a very ill name, so as to say: I found not thy daughter a virgin: and behold these are the tokens of my daughter's virginity. And they shall spread the cloth before the ancients of the city:

And the ancients of that city shall take that man, and beat him,

Condemning him besides in a hundred sicles of silver, which he shall give to the damsel's father, because he hath defamed by a very ill name a virgin of Israel: and he shall have her to wife, and may not put her away all the days of his life.

But if what he charged her with be true, and virginity be not found in the damsel:

They shall cast her out of the doors of her father's house, and the men of the city shall stone her to death, and she shall die: because she hath done a wicked thing in Israel, to play the whore in her father's house: and thou shalt take away the evil out of the midst of thee.

But if he will not take his brother's wife, who by law belongeth to him, the woman shall go to the gate of the city, and call upon the ancients, and say: My husband's brother refuseth to raise up his brother's name in Israel: and will not take me to wife.

And they shall cause him to be sent for forthwith, and shall ask him. If he answer: I will not take her to wife:

The woman shall come to him before the ancients, and shall take off his shoe from his foot, and spit in his face, and say: So shall it be done to the man that will not build up his brother's house:

He took a boy of the men of Soccoth: and he asked him the names of the princes and ancients of Soccoth, and he described unto him seventy-seven men.

And he came to Soccoth, and said to them: Behold Zebee, and Salmana, concerning whom you upbraided me, saying: Peradventure the hands of Zebee and Salmana are in thy hands, and therefore thou demandest that we should give bread to the men that are weary and faint.