Deuteronomy 22:13-23

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

14 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:

15 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:

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

17 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:

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

19 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.

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

21 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.

22 If a man lie with another man’s wife, they shall both die, that is to say, the adulterer and the adulteress: and thou shalt take away the evil out of Israel.

23 If a man have espoused a damsel that is a virgin, and some one find her in the city, and lie 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.