Deuteronomy 24:1-8

1 If a man marries a woman and then it happens that he no longer likes her because he has found something wrong with her, he may give her divorce papers, put them in her hand, and send her off.

2 After she leaves, if she becomes another man's wife

3 and he also comes to hate her and this second husband also gives her divorce papers, puts them in her hand, and sends her off, or if he should die,

4 then the first husband who divorced her can't marry her again. She has made herself ritually unclean, and her remarriage would be an abomination in the Presence of God and defile the land with sin, this land that God, your God, is giving you as an inheritance.

5 When a man takes a new wife, he is not to go out with the army or be given any business or work duties. He gets one year off simply to be at home making his wife happy.

6 Don't seize a handmill or an upper millstone as collateral for a loan. You'd be seizing someone's very life.

7 If a man is caught kidnapping one of his kinsmen, someone of the People of Israel, to enslave or sell him, the kidnapper must die. Purge that evil from among you.

8 Warning! If a serious skin disease breaks out, follow exactly the rules set down by the Levitical priests. Follow them precisely as I commanded them.

Deuteronomy 24:1-8 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.