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Making Promises to the Lord

¹ The Lord told Moses to say to Israel's tribal leaders:

² When one of you men makes a promise to the Lord,^[a] you must keep your word.

³ Suppose a young woman who is still living with her parents makes a promise to the Lord. ⁴ If her father hears about it and says nothing, she must keep her promise. ⁵ But if he hears about it and objects, then she no longer has to keep her promise. The Lord will forgive her, because her father did not agree with the promise.^6-7 Suppose a woman makes a promise to the Lord and then gets married. If her husband later hears about the promise but says nothing, she must do what she said, whether she meant it or not. ⁸ But if her husband hears about the promise and objects, she no longer has to keep it, and the Lord will forgive her.

⁹ Widows and divorced women must keep every promise they make to the Lord.

¹⁰ Suppose a married woman makes a promise to the Lord. ¹¹ If her husband hears about the promise and says nothing, she must do what she said. ¹² But if he hears about the promise and does object, she no longer has to keep it. The Lord will forgive her, because her husband would not allow her to keep the promise. ¹³ Her husband has the final say about any promises she makes to the Lord. ¹⁴ If her husband hears about a promise and says nothing about it for a whole day, she must do what she said—since he did not object, the promise must be kept. ¹⁵ But if he waits until the next day to stop her from keeping her promise, he is the one who must be punished.

¹⁶ These are the laws that the Lord gave Moses about husbands and wives, and about young daughters who still live at home.