The Judicial System in the Promised Land
Moses continued, “When you enter the land, you must replace your current judiciary, which is organized according to the numerical division of the people, with a new hierarchy composed of local and regional judges. You must appoint judges and sheriffs for yourselves in all your cities that GOD, your God, is giving you. The job of the sheriffs is to enforce the judges’ rulings, threatening the people with clubs and whips if necessary. You must appoint separate judges and sheriffs for each of your tribes and cities. If a city comprises members of different tribes, a separate court must be set up in that city for each tribe. Appoint judges who are expert and righteous, to ensure that they will judge the people by rendering fair judgments.

Tell these judges: ‘You must not pervert justice. You must not show partiality to either of the litigants – even while hearing their testimony – for this will affect their ability to present their respective cases. As you have been taught, you must not accept a bribe – even if you are confident in your ability to judge the case fairly regardless – for bribery perforce blinds the eyes of the sage to the faults of the person who gave the bribe and perverts the just words of the Torah, twisting them in the mind of the judge.’

Conversely, as litigants, do not automatically assume that all courts will be equitable. Justice, justice must you pursue, by realizing that it is your responsibility to seek reliable courts. Appointing righteous judges is so crucial that doing so will earn you sufficient merit for which you may live and take possession of the land that GOD, your God, is giving you.

Idolatry
You have been told not to worship idols, and moreover, to uproot all deified trees you encounter in the Land of Israel. In addition, you must not even plant for yourself such a deified tree, for even merely planting such a tree is a punishable offense, whether or not you worship it. Furthermore, you must not plant any type of tree or build a house near the Altar of GOD, your God, that you will make for yourself, i.e., on the Temple mountain.

You must not erect for yourself a single-stoned altar-pedestal, even in order to offer up sacrifices to God on it. Even though God did not oppose the use of such altar-pedestals in the patriarchal era, they are now something that GOD, your God, hates, because the Canaanites have since then made their use part of their idolatrous rites.

Improper Intentions in Sacrificing
You have been told that you must not eat the meat of a sacrificed animal if the person who slaughtered it articulated his intention that its meat be eaten outside the prescribed times for doing so; and that when you slaughter an animal as a sacrifice, you must do so with the intention that it be eaten within the prescribed time limit. In addition, slaughtering an animal as a sacrifice with the intention that it be eaten outside its prescribed time is subject to a restrictive commandment: You must not slaughter to GOD, your God, an ox, sheep, or goat that acquires a defect through any improper pronouncement by its slaughterer, i.e., through an articulation of his or her intent to eat it outside of the prescribed time for doing so, for GOD, your God, considers this an abomination. In contrast, the sacrifice is not invalidated if you merely harbor such an intention in your thoughts but do not articulate it.

Punishment for Idolatry
If there be found among you, within one of your cities that GOD, your God, is giving you, a man or woman performing the quintessential act that GOD, your God, deems evil, transgressing His covenant with you that you not serve idols

by going and worshiping other peoples’ deities and prostrating him or herself before them, or before the sun, the moon, or any heavenly body, all of which I have commanded you not to worship;

and the crime is reported to you, and you – via your legal surrogates, the court – hear the report from valid witnesses, and you (again, through the court) investigate the matter thoroughly; and it is found to be true because the evidence supplied by all the witnesses agrees, establishing that this abomination has indeed been committed in Israel, i.e., among the Jewish people;

then you (again, via your emissaries, the court) must bring the man or woman who committed this evil thing to the gate of the city in which the idolatry was committed, this man or woman, and you must pelt them with stones as described below, intending that they die thereby.

The idolater, who is liable to death, must be condemned to death by the court by virtue of the testimony of a minimum of two witnesses. The testimonies of the witnesses combine to form one testimony, and thus none of the witnesses can be convicted of perjury unless they all are, whether there are two or three witnesses or any greater number. The accused may not be condemned to death by the testimony of only one witness.

Death by stoning is to be administered as follows: The hand of the witnesses must be the first upon the guilty party, to put him to death: One witness must push him off an elevation twice his height; if the fall does not kill him, the second witness must cast a heavy stone onto his chest; if this, too, does not kill him, then only afterwards must the collective hand of all the people kill him by pelting him with stones. His corpse must then be hung on a pole for a short period of time, taken down before nightfall, and then buried. So must you, as a people, eliminate this evil of idolatry from your midst.

Judicial Hierarchy
If the solution to a matter in judgment that is brought before you as a judge eludes you – for example: whether a particular discharge of blood is blood that would render a woman ritually defiled or it is blood that does not, whether a particular legal case is a case in which the accused is guilty or it is a case in which he or she is innocent, or whether a particular dermal lesion is a lesion that would render a person ritually defiled or it is a lesion that does not – rendering any such matters subjects of dispute in any of your cities because the judges cannot agree upon the verdict, you must arise and go up to the place that GOD, your God, will have chosen as the site for His Temple, for this place will also be the seat of the Sanhedrin, the supreme court.

You must approach the Sanhedrin, which should ideally include Levitic priests if they are qualified, and which is headed by the supreme judge who will be in office at that time – whose authority you must accept even if he cannot compare with the judges that preceded him – and inquire of them. They will tell you the solution to the matter in question.

You must act in accordance with the verdict that they tell you from their seat in the place that GOD will have chosen as the Temple site. You must be careful to act in accordance with everything they instruct you.

You must act in accordance with the law that they instruct you and the judgment they pronounce to you. You may not deviate right or left from what they tell you; even if they have rendered a manifestly erroneous judgment, God nevertheless insists that you follow their instructions.

Any person (i.e., judge) who acts maleficently – in this case, by not obeying the verdict of the priest who stands there to serve GOD, your God, or the superior judge – that person must be tried and put to death by the court, and you must thereby eliminate this evil from Israel, i.e., the Jewish people.

Postpone the execution of the guilty judge until the next pilgrim festival, so that the entire people, who will be present at that time, can listen to what happened and hence be afraid to incur similar guilt; thus, they will no longer think to act maleficently in this way, had they entertained such an idea.

Appointing a King
When you enter the land that GOD, your God, is giving you, take possession of it, and settle it, and you say collectively, ‘I will appoint a king over myself, like all the nations around me,’

you may indeed appoint a king over yourself, but he must be one whom GOD, your God, chooses. You must appoint a king over yourself from among your brothers, that is, from among your fellow Jews; you may not appoint a foreigner – that is, one who is not your brother-Israelite – over yourself, for, as will be seen presently, your king is subject to all the laws of the Torah, not just those that apply to non-Jews.

Once he has been appointed, the only restrictions that the king must abide by beyond those that apply to all Jews are, firstly, that he not acquire more horses for himself than are required for his limited number of chariots, so that he not bring any of the people back to Egypt in order to procure these many horses, for GOD has said to you, ‘You must never return along that path.’

Secondly, he must not take more than eighteen wives for himself, in order that his heart not thereby be distracted from his royal duties by his excessive matrimonial duties, undermining his ability to fulfill his duties as king. Thirdly, he must not acquire more silver and gold for himself than is necessary to finance his army.

If the king abides by these restrictions, God will guarantee that he sit securely upon his royal throne and that his reign be prolonged. The king must also observe the following, additional commandment, that applies only to him: He must write for himself two copies of this Torah on a scroll, one to keep in his archives and one to take with him wherever he goes, copying it from the Torah scroll that is in the care of the Levitic priests.

The Torah must thus remain with him physically at all times, and he must read from it every day of his life, so that he may learn to revere GOD, his God; to safeguard all the words of this Torah and these rules by studying them so that he know how to properly perform them;

so that his heart will not become haughty over his brothers; and so that he will not deviate either to the right or to the left from even a seemingly inconsequential commandment communicated to him by a prophet. He should fulfill all these requirements in order that he might prolong the time he rules over his kingdom – he and his sons – among Israel. If his son is qualified, it is preferable that he inherit the kingship when the time comes, rather than it being given to anyone else.

Priests’ Entitlements
As you have been told, the entire tribe of Levi has been granted a portion of the national surplus, and the priests a portion of certain sacrifices in addition, in order to relieve them of the burden of having to earn a living, enabling them to devote themselves to the Temple service (or, until the Temple is built, the Tabernacle service – and so in all further references to the Temple) on behalf of the rest of the nation. The following privileges accrue to the entire tribe: The Levitic priests – every priest, whether he be fit to serve in the Temple or be disqualified from doing so on account of a bodily blemish – together with the rest of the tribe of Levi, must have no portion in the spoils of war nor any land-inheritance with the rest of Israel. Instead, the priests must eat their designated portions of GOD’s fire-offerings, i.e., the sacrifices offered up in the Temple, and the tribe of Levi as a whole must eat His inheritance, i.e., the portions allocated to them from the rest of the nation’s produce.

The tribe of Levi must have no land-inheritance among its lay-brothers. Instead, GOD Himself is the priest’s or Levite’s inheritance, and the priest or Levite must therefore devote himself exclusively to His service, as He spoke concerning him.

Besides the gifts you have already been told about, the following must also be the priests’ entitlement from all lay people: From those who slaughter any domesticated animal for personal consumption, be it an ox (or other type of cattle) or a sheep or a goat, the slaughterer must give the priest the section of the right foreleg from the knee to the shoulder, the cheeks together with the tongue, and the stomach.

As you have been told, you must give the priest the first of your annual yields of grain, wine, and olive oil (terumah). You must also give him the first of the fleece of your sheep when you annually shear them.

For GOD, your God, has selected him out of all your tribes to stand (for the sacrificial rites must be performed while standing) and serve in the name of GOD – he and his sons – for all time.

The Divisions of the Priests
If a Levite priest wishes to come from one of your cities out of all Israel, where he sojourns, to offer up his own, personal sacrifice – whether voluntary or obligatory – in the Temple, he may come whenever his soul desires, to the place GOD will choose as the site of the Temple,

and he may serve in the name of GOD, his God, just like all his Levite brothers – the priests – who stand there before GOD, even if it is not the time designated for his division. Furthermore, during the three pilgrim festivals (and during the six days following Shavu’ot), all priests may offer up sacrifices associated with these festivals – not only those whose division happens to be serving in the Temple at that time.

During the pilgrim festivals, all the priests must eat equal portions of the communal sin-offerings specified for these festivals. Thus, they will share equally in all the communal sacrifices offered up during the pilgrim festivals except those not related to the festivals (e.g., the daily and Sabbath offerings), which were ‘sold’ by the heads of each division to each other.

Divination
As I have told you, when you enter the land that GOD, your God, is giving you, you must not study the abominations of those nations in order to act likewise. However, you should examine their idolatrous rites in order to impress upon yourselves just how depraved these rites are and in order to teach your children not to imitate these practices.

Specifically, there must not be among you anyone who passes his son or daughter through fire – this being the central feature of the cult of Molech – or anyone who consults any of the following: a stick-diviner, a diviner of auspicious times, an illusionist, a diviner who interprets omens, a divining sorcerer,

a snake- or scorpion-diviner, a diviner who conjures the spirit of a dead person, causing it to speak via his armpit, a diviner who speaks from his mouth by placing the bone of an animal called a yadu’a in it, or a diviner who communicates with the dead either by conjuring the spirit of a dead person and causing it to speak via his reproductive organ or via a skull.

Even though these methods of divination may be efficacious, you must still refrain from resorting to their use, for whoever does any of these things becomes himself an abomination to GOD, and because of these abominations, GOD, your God, is driving out the present occupants of the Land of Israel, who practice them, from before you.

Instead, rather than trying to obsessively divine the future, be wholehearted with GOD, your God: trust Him and accept His providence. You will then not fret about the future and thus not feel any need to foretell it. If you behave in this manner, God will keep you in His land – in contrast to the pagan nations whom He will drive out on account of the abominations they practice.

The Urim and Tumim; Prophecy
Nonetheless, once you have wholeheartedly accepted God’s providence and are therefore free of anxiety over the future, you may seek to discover what the future holds. But whereas these nations whom you are dispossessing hearken to diviners of auspicious times, illusionists, and stick-diviners, as for you, GOD, your God, has not abandoned you to these methods of divining the future.

Rather, in order to enable you to obtain His guidance, GOD, your God, has given you – in contrast to stick-diviners, who divine using tools – the urim and tumim, through which He will communicate His will to your king regarding issues of national importance; and – in contrast to diviners of auspicious times and illusionists – He will appoint a prophet for you who hails from among you, from your brothers, like I am one of you. You must hearken to him, for the prophets of every generation will serve in my stead as your intermediaries with God.

This arrangement will accord with everything you asked of GOD, your God, at Mount Horeb (i.e., Mount Sinai), on the day of the assemblage of the entire nation to receive the Torah, saying collectively to me, ‘Although I have seen that with God’s supernatural help it is possible to hear His voice directly and remain alive, I prefer to receive the Torah in the context of my natural existence. Therefore, I prefer not to continue to hear the voice of GOD, my God, directly, and not to see this great fire anymore, and that way I will not die from the intensity of the revelation. Rather, I prefer that you alone communicate directly with God and then convey His words to me.’

And GOD said to me, ‘They have done well in what they have spoken.

I will continue to communicate with them through you while you are alive, and after you die I will authorize a prophet for them from among their brothers, like you. I will place My words into his mouth, and he will speak to them all that I command him to tell them.

Whoever does not hearken to My words, which he speaks in My name, I will exact punishment from him by putting him to death Myself.

But as for the prophet who intentionally says something in My name that I did not command him to say – whether I did not say it at all or whether I commanded some other prophet to say it, or who speaks in the name of other peoples’ deities – even if he speaks the truth, such a prophet must be tried by the court and, if found guilty, die by strangulation.’

False Prophets
If you say to yourself, ‘How will we know that the word that the prophet is saying is one that GOD did not speak?’

If the prophet speaks in the name of GOD, prophesying something favorable, and the thing does not transpire and does not come to pass, you will know that that is what GOD did not say. The prophet has spoken it maleficently. You must therefore not be afraid of him, that is, of bearing responsibility for his death by incriminating him.

Cities of Refuge
As you know, God commanded us to designate six cities of refuge in the Promised Land. The purpose of these cities is to shelter unintentional murderers from the close relatives of their victims, who are allowed to kill them if they find them outside these cities. I have already designated three such cities in the territories that I assigned to the tribes of Reuben and Gad and to half of the tribe of Manasseh. When you cross over into Canaan and GOD, your God, cuts off the nations whose land GOD, your God, is giving you, and you dispossess them and dwell in their cities and in their houses,

you must designate for yourself three additional cities of refuge in the midst of your land, which GOD, your God, is giving you to possess.

Prepare for yourself the way to these cities by posting signs pointing the way to them at every crossroad. Divide the length of your land, which GOD, your God, is giving you as an inheritance, such that the three cities are equidistant one from another as well as from the border, so it will be convenient for any unintentional murderer to flee there, i.e., to one of them.

The following is the case in which the inadvertent murderer may flee there, so that he may live: Whoever strikes his fellow to death inadvertently, whom he did not hate in times past –

as when a person goes with his fellow into the forest to chop wood, and his hand swings the ax to fell the tree, and either the iron flies off the handle or the ax’s blow to the tree causes a chunk of wood to go flying, and it reaches his fellow and he dies – he must flee to one of these cities and live.

God commands you to do all this – to designate multiple cities of refuge and make them sufficiently accessible – lest the blood-avenger pursue the killer while the former’s heart is hot, and overtake him because the way to the city of refuge is too long, and he strikes the killer to death – although he was not deserving of death, for he did not hate his victim previously and premeditate the murder.

Therefore, I command you, saying, ‘You must designate for yourself three cities.’

Future Cities of Refuge
When, in the future, GOD, your God, will expand your boundary as He swore to your forefathers, and He gives you all the land of the Keinites (Ammon), the Kenizites (Moab), and the Kadmonites (Edom), which He said He would give to your forefathers

(provided that you safeguard this commandment completely by studying how to perform it properly, enabling you to then indeed perform it properly – namely, the commandment that I am commanding you today: to love GOD, your God, and to walk in His ways for all time), you must add three more cities for yourself in those territories, in addition to these three in Canaan,

so that the innocent blood of the inadvertent murderer not be shed by the avenger of the slain person in the midst of your land that GOD, your God, is giving you for an inheritance, which would make you guilty collectively of having shed this blood.

But if a man hates his fellow, and as a result of this hatred lies in wait for him, rises up against him, and intentionally strikes him mortally, and he flees to one of these cities,

the elders of his city must send emissaries and have them take him from there and deliver him into the hand of the blood-avenger, that he may die.

You must not pity him, regretting having to kill another Jew besides the one that he has already killed. You must rather, in this way, eliminate the injustice caused by the shedding of the blood of the innocent murder victim from Israel, and it will go well for you.

Theft
You must not push your neighbor’s landmark, which your predecessors have erected as border markers, back into his territory in order to increase the size of your own territory – for this is robbery. You have already been told not to rob in general, so this prohibition makes you doubly liable to punishment. This double injunction applies, however, only in your land-inheritance that you will inherit in the land that GOD, your God, is giving you to possess. Outside of the Promised Land, such behavior does not incur double punishment.

Testimony; Perjury
You have been taught that a minimum of two witnesses is required to establish guilt in capital cases. The same rule applies to most non-capital offenses: One single witness must not be empowered to rise up against any person accused of a crime and implicate him for any iniquity or for any sin, regarding any sin that he or she may commit. Rather, the matter of someone’s innocence or guilt must be confirmed by the testimony of at least two witnesses. Similarly, you have been taught that in capital cases, none of the witnesses can be convicted of perjury unless they all can, whether the defendant is being indicted by the testimony of two witnesses or by the testimony of three or any greater number of witnesses. This same rule generally applies to non-capital cases.

If two corrupt witnesses rise up against a person to bear untenable testimony against him, and the defendant has been sentenced by virtue of that testimony but has not yet been punished for his alleged crime, and then two other witnesses testify that the first pair could not have possibly witnessed this crime,

the two original witnesses must stand trial themselves. (When witnesses testify, as well as when the two litigants between whom the controversy exists state their cases, they must stand when doing so. Furthermore, they must consider themselves as if they were standing before GOD Himself when they stand before the priests and the judges and conduct themselves accordingly, and – as you have been taught – they must accept the authority of the priests and judges who will be in office at that time even if they cannot compare with the priests and judges who came before them.)

Punishment for Perjury
The judges must investigate the matter thoroughly, and if it is indeed determined that the witnesses are false witnesses, because they testified falsely against their brother,

then you must do to them what they plotted to do to their brother; you must thus eliminate this evil from your midst.

You must announce the sentence of these false witnesses publicly, so that those who remain – i.e., all other potential witnesses – will listen and fear, and thus they will no longer continue to commit any such evil thing among you.

You must not have pity on the false witnesses, but impose on them the same punishment that would have been imposed on the defendant had he or she been declared guilty: the perjuring witnesses must pay with their lives for having caused the accused party to be sentenced to lose his life; they must pay the accused full monetary compensation for the loss of an eye if he was sentenced to pay monetary compensation for having caused the loss of an eye, and likewise – the monetary compensation of a tooth for a tooth, of a hand for a hand, and of a leg for a leg. In these latter cases, the false witnesses must pay the defendant the difference between the price the supposed victim would have commanded on the slave market before and after suffering the damage that the defendant was accused of inflicting on him.

Preparations for War
As you know, when you enter the Land of Israel, you are obligated to wage war against its present occupants, either killing them or driving them out of the land. If at some future point you deem it necessary to expand the borders of the Promised Land, you may, after consulting with God through His prophets or the urim and tumim, wage an optional war against your neighbors. In either case, when you go out to war, whether it be an obligatory or optional war, you must bear in mind that since you are contending against your enemies, who will show you no mercy if you fall into their hands, you must likewise not show them any mercy. Furthermore, you must be confident that God will assist you in your confrontation with them: If you see the enemy armies, then see them as God does – as easy to defeat as one single horse and one single chariot. And although the people in the enemy’s army may appear frighteningly numerous to you, in God’s eyes they are not frightening at all. Thus, you must not be afraid of them, for GOD, your God, who brought you up out of Egypt, is with you. The fact that you are resolutely dedicated to the pursuit of justice – as evidenced by how you are not afraid to punish false witnesses in the cases described above – assures you of God’s assistance in battle.

However, you must first ensure that all those who are exempt from military service are either released from conscription or not conscripted in the first place. Firstly, anyone lacking a limb or organ is exempt. Secondly, all those who may not be able to summon their full courage in battle must not be allowed to fight. Therefore, when you – that is, those of you who have been conscripted into military service – are about to cross the border of the territory you control and approach the battlefield, the priest who has been designated and anointed with oil for the purpose of addressing the soldiers must approach and speak to the people. He must deliver this address in Hebrew.

He must say to them as follows: ‘Even if you have no collective merit other than that earned by reciting Hear, Israel! – the Shema – twice a day, God will still help you. Today you are approaching the battle against your enemies. If they capture you, they will not show you mercy. Therefore, summon your courage for battle. You must not let your hearts become faint when you hear the neighing of their horses and the stomping of their horses’ hooves! You must not be afraid when you hear the clanging of their shields! You must not be alarmed when you hear the blast of their trumpets! And you must not be terrified of them when you hear their shouts!

For whereas they rely solely on human prowess, you have the protection of GOD, your God; He is the one who accompanies you, as evidenced by the continued presence of the Ark of the Covenant in the middle of your encampments and trekking formation. You may therefore confidently rely on Him to fight for you against your enemies and to save you from them.’

Exemptions from Conscription
The priest must then say the following in an undertone, and the sheriffs must afterward speak to the people, saying out loud what the priest just said in an undertone: ‘Has anyone built a new house but has not yet inaugurated it by beginning to live in it? If so, he must go and return to his house, lest he die in the war and another man inaugurate it.’ The soldier’s anxiety over this possibility will prevent him from summoning his full courage in battle.

The priest – again in an undertone, followed by the sheriffs out loud – must continue: ‘And has anyone planted a vineyard but not yet redeemed it, that is, its fourth-year fruit, in order to eat of its fruit for the first time? If so, he must go and return to his house, lest he die in the war and another man redeem it.’ Here, too, the soldier’s anxiety over this possibility will prevent him from summoning his full courage in battle.

The priest – again in an undertone, followed by the sheriffs out loud – must continue: ‘And has anyone betrothed a woman but not yet taken her as a wife? If so, he must go and return to his house, lest he die in the war and another man take her in his stead.’ Once again, the soldier’s anxiety over this possibility will prevent him from summoning his full courage in battle.

The priest having finished his address, the sheriffs must then add the following to the priest’s words, and speak to the people and say, ‘Is there anyone who is fearful and fainthearted – being afraid to do battle? If so, he must go and return to his house, so as not to cause the heart of his brothers to melt as his heart has melted.’ Fear is the most crucial reason for exemption from military service, since its contagiousness could enervate the entire army, and as such, it should have been announced first. But instead, it is announced last, in order to include those who become struck by fear only at the last minute, just before going into battle.

When the sheriffs finish addressing the people, they must appoint officers over the legions to stand at the head and at the rear of the people. It will be the job of these officers to deter deserters, encouraging them by saying, ‘Return to the battle and do not flee, for flight will lead to defeat!’ and threatening to cut off their legs should they attempt to desert.

If, in the course of an optional war, you approach a city to wage war against it, you must first propose peace to it according to the following terms:

If it responds to you with peace and opens up its gates to you, the terms are that all the people found therein both become tributary to you and serve you; they are not allowed to accept only one of these conditions. Even if you find there members of the seven nations whom you are commanded to exterminate, you may, in this case, allow them to live and become your servants.

Laying Siege
If the city does not make peace with you on these terms, you can be certain that it will eventually wage war against you if you leave it unconquered. You must therefore besiege it, and, if necessary, starve its inhabitants, make them suffer thirst, and kill them by spreading mortal diseases among them, until they surrender.

If you indeed offer this city peace and then besiege it if it refuses, GOD, your God, will deliver it into your hands, and you must then kill all its adult males by the sword.

However, the women, the children, the livestock, and everything that is in the city – all its spoils – you may take for yourself, and thus you will consume the spoils of your enemies that GOD, your God, will have given you.

You must do likewise to all the cities that are distant from you, i.e., outside your borders, which are not one of the cities of these seven nations currently occupying the Promised Land.

It is only with regard to any of the cities of these seven peoples occupying the Promised Land, which GOD, your God, is giving you as an inheritance, that you must not allow any soul within them to live once you have begun to besiege them.

Captives From the Seven Nations
Rather, you must utterly destroy them – the Hittites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizites, the Hivites, the Jebusites, and the Girgashites, as GOD, your God, has commanded you –

in order that they not teach you to act in accordance with all their abominations that they have performed for their deities, whereby you would be sinning against GOD, your God. If, however, members of these nations forsake their idolatrous ways and convert to Judaism, you may accept them and allow them to live. Before beginning to besiege them, however, you may propose peace to them – just as I did to Sichon – although you are not required to do so, as you are in the case of an optional war.

Returning to the laws of besieging a city outside the Promised Land: If you besiege such a city, you must begin the siege more than two days before the Sabbath, and repeat your offer of peace a few times during this period before you undertake to wage war against it in order to capture it. You must not destroy its fruit trees by wielding an ax against them, for since you may eat from them, you must not cut them down. Is the tree of the field a man, who is able to come into the besieged city, fleeing from you? Since it is not, you should not punish it.

However, you may destroy and cut down any tree that you know is not a food tree and use its wood to build a blockade against the city that wages war against you, keeping the city besieged until its submission.

Unsolved Murder
As you have been told, in the case of a witnessed intentional murder, the execution of the murderer atones for this guilt; in the case of a witnessed inadvertent murder, the exile of the murderer to a city of refuge (or his execution by the blood-avenger) atones. It now remains to explain how the guilt of bloodshed is to be atoned for in the case of an unsolved murder. If a slain person be found lying in the field anywhere in the land that GOD, your God, is giving you to possess, and it is not known who slew him,

your elders and judges, i.e., the Sanhedrin, must go out to the site where the corpse was found and measure the distance from that site to the cities surrounding the corpse in all directions in order to ascertain which city is closest. This city must then collectively assume the responsibility for atoning for the guilt caused by the murder, as follows:

The Calf of Atonement
From the city closest to the corpse, the elders, i.e., the court, of that city must take a calf with which labor has never been performed and that has never drawn any load with a yoke,

and the elders of that city must bring the calf down to a virgin valley that has never been tilled or sown, and there in the valley, they must decapitate the calf with a hatchet. The death of the calf – too young to have borne offspring, and killed in a location that had never produced any yield and in a manner that disqualifies it for Jewish consumption – will atone for the death of this slain person, whose life was cut short before he could fulfill all his potential.

The Levitic priests of that city must also approach the decapitated calf, for GOD, your God, has chosen them to serve Him and to bless the people in the Name of GOD, and by their mouth must every controversy and every dermal lesion be judged.

All the elders of that city, who were nearest to the corpse, must wash their hands over the calf that was decapitated in the valley,

and must declare their innocence and say, ‘Our hands did not indirectly shed this blood by allowing this person to depart from our city without proper escort, for our eyes did not see him leave.’

The priests must then address God, saying, ‘Grant atonement for Your people Israel, whom You have redeemed, GOD, and do not lay the guilt of this innocent blood upon Your people Israel.’ Thus the bloodguilt will be atoned for them.

Nevertheless, if the murderer is later found, you must still eradicate the guilt of innocent blood from among you by sentencing him to death and executing him, for you must do what is proper in the eyes of GOD.”