Deuteronomy 24:7-17

Kidnapping

7 If someone is caught kidnapping their fellow Israelites, intending to enslave the Israelite or sell them, that kidnapper must die. Remove such evil from your community!

Skin disease

8 Be on guard against outbreaks of skin disease by being very careful about what you do. You must carefully do everything the levitical priests teach you, just as I have commanded them.
9 Remember, after all, what the LORD your God did to Miriam on your departure from Egypt!

Loans

10 When you make any type of loan to your neighbor, don't enter their house to receive the collateral.
11 You must wait outside. The person to whom you are lending will bring the collateral to you out there.
12 Moreover, if the person is poor, you are not allowed to sleep in their pawned coat.
13 Instead, be certain to give the pawned coat back by sunset so they can sleep in their own coat. They will bless you, and you will be considered righteous before the LORD your God.

Payment for workers

14 Don't take advantage of poor or needy workers, whether they are fellow Israelites or immigrants who live in your land or your cities.
15 Pay them their salary the same day, before the sun sets, because they are poor, and their very life depends on that pay, and so they don't cry out against you to the LORD. That would make you guilty.

Generational punishment

16 Parents shouldn't be executed because of what their children have done; neither should children be executed because of what their parents have done. Each person should be executed for their own guilty acts.

Rights of widows, orphans, and immigrants

17 Don't obstruct the legal rights of an immigrant or orphan. Don't take a widow's coat as pledge for a loan.

Deuteronomy 24:7-17 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO DEUTERONOMY 24

This chapter contains various laws concerning divorces, De 24:1-4; the discharge of a newly married man from war and business, De 24:5; about taking pledges, De 24:6,10-13; man stealing, De 24:7; the plague of leprosy, De 24:8,9; and giving servants their hire in due time, De 24:14,15; concerning doing justice in capital cases, and towards the stranger, fatherless, and widow, De 24:16-18; and of charity to the poor, in allowing them the forgotten sheaf, and the gleanings of their oliveyards and vineyards, De 24:19-22.

Footnotes 2

  • [a]. Or burn
  • [b]. Heb uncertain; traditionally leprosy—a term used for several different skin diseases
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