Bible Glide

Deuteronomy 24

Deuteronomy 24 Summary, Context, and Full Chapter

Deuteronomy 24 gives practical laws for marriage, work, lending, justice, and daily mercy. The chapter shows how Israel was to treat people fairly, protect the vulnerable, and remember God's saving work when making ordinary decisions.

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What happens in Deuteronomy 24?

The chapter begins with laws about divorce and remarriage, then gives a special exemption for a newly married man so he can spend his first year at home. It moves into everyday ethics: do not take a poor person's livelihood as loan security, do not kidnap or enslave a fellow Israelite, and follow priestly instruction in skin disease cases. The rest of the chapter stresses fair treatment for workers, foreigners, widows, and orphans. Israel is told to leave part of the harvest for those in need and to remember their own slavery in Egypt as the reason for their compassion.

This chapter belongs to the section of Deuteronomy where Moses applies God's covenant to Israel's life in the land. The laws are not random rules but part of a larger call to holiness, justice, and communal responsibility as the people prepare to live under God's care in their inheritance.

Themes to notice

  • Marriage and family orderThe opening laws regulate divorce and protect the stability of new marriages.
  • Justice for the vulnerableThe chapter repeatedly defends the poor, foreigner, widow, orphan, and hired worker.
  • Memory that shapes mercyIsrael's own rescue from Egypt is given as the reason to act with fairness and generosity.

Questions for Deuteronomy 24

  • What do the marriage and remarriage laws show about God's concern for covenant faithfulness?
  • How do the lending and wage laws protect people who are already vulnerable?
  • Why does Moses keep linking mercy in Israel to their memory of slavery in Egypt?

Read the full text of Deuteronomy 24 below, then open it in the reader to highlight, take notes, or ask follow-up Bible questions. No account is required to read.

Deuteronomy 24

Marriage and Divorce Laws

1If a man marries a woman, but she becomes displeasing to him because he finds some indecency in her, he may write her a certificate of divorce, hand it to her, and send her away from his house.2If, after leaving his house, she goes and becomes another man’s wife,3and the second man hates her, writes her a certificate of divorce, hands it to her, and sends her away from his house, or if he dies,4then the husband who divorced her first may not remarry her after she has been defiled, for that is an abomination to the LORD. You must not bring sin upon the land that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance.5If a man is newly married, he must not be sent to war or be pressed into any duty. For one year he is free to stay at home and bring joy to the wife he has married.

Additional Laws

6Do not take a pair of millstones or even an upper millstone as security for a debt, because that would be taking one’s livelihood as security.

7If a man is caught kidnapping one of his Israelite brothers, whether he treats him as a slave or sells him, the kidnapper must die. So you must purge the evil from among you.

8In cases of infectious skin diseases, be careful to diligently follow everything the Levitical priests instruct you. Be careful to do as I have commanded them.9Remember what the LORD your God did to Miriam on the journey after you came out of Egypt.

10When you lend anything to your neighbor, do not enter his house to collect security.11You are to stand outside while the man to whom you are lending brings the security out to you.12If he is a poor man, you must not go to sleep with the security in your possession;13be sure to return it to him by sunset, so that he may sleep in his own cloak and bless you, and this will be credited to you as righteousness before the LORD your God.

14Do not oppress a hired hand who is poor and needy, whether he is a brother or a foreigner residing in one of your towns.15You are to pay his wages each day before sunset, because he is poor and depends on them. Otherwise he may cry out to the LORD against you, and you will be guilty of sin.

16Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor children for their fathers; each is to die for his own sin.

17Do not deny justice to the foreigner or the fatherless, and do not take a widow’s cloak as security.18Remember that you were slaves in Egypt, and the LORD your God redeemed you from that place. Therefore I am commanding you to do this.

19If you are harvesting in your field and forget a sheaf there, do not go back to get it. It is to be left for the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow, so that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hands.20When you beat the olives from your trees, you must not go over the branches again. What remains will be for the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow.

21When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, you must not go over the vines again. What remains will be for the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow.22Remember that you were slaves in the land of Egypt. Therefore I am commanding you to do this.

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