Deuteronomy 22:13-23

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

14 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';

15 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.

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

17 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'-(

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

19 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.

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

21 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.

22 "If a man is found sleeping with a woman who has a husband, both of them must die -the man who went to bed with the woman and the woman too. In this way you will expel such wickedness from Isra'el.

23 "If a girl who is a virgin is engaged to a man, and another man comes upon her in the town and has sexual relations with her;

Deuteronomy 22:13-23 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO DEUTERONOMY 22

In this chapter are various laws, concerning care of a neighbour's cattle gone astray or in distress, and of anything lost by him, De 22:1-4, forbidding one sex to wear the apparel, of another, De 22:5 and the taking away of the dam with the young found in a bird's nest, De 22:6,7, ordering battlements to be made in a new house, De 22:8, prohibiting mixtures in sowing, ploughing, and in garments, De 22:9-11, requiring fringes on the four quarters of a garment, De 22:12, fining a man that slanders his wife, upon producing the tokens of her virginity, De 22:13-19 but if these cannot be produced, then orders are given that she be put to death, De 22:20-21, then follow other laws, punishing with death the adulterer and adulteress, and one that hath ravished a betrothed damsel, De 22:22-27, amercing a person that lies with a virgin not betrothed and she consenting, and obliging him to marry her, and not suffering him to divorce her, De 22:28-29 and another against a man's lying with his father's wife, De 22:30.