Numbers 30  Modern English Version

The Law About Vows

30 And Moses spoke to the heads of the tribes of the children of Israel, saying: This is the thing that the Lord has commanded. ² If a man vows a vow to the Lord, or swears an oath to bind himself with a bond, he will not break his word. He will do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth.

³ If a woman makes a vow to the Lord, and binds herself by a bond, while in her father’s house in her youth, ⁴ and her father hears her vow and her bond with which she has bound herself, and her father is silent to her, then all her vows will stand, and every bond with which she has bound herself will stand. ⁵ But if her father restrains her in the day he hears, none of her vows or her bonds with which she has bound herself will stand, and the Lord will forgive her, because her father restrained her.

⁶ If she had a husband when she vowed, or uttered anything out of her lips with which she bound herself, ⁷ and her husband heard it and was silent to her in the day that he heard it, then her vows will stand, and her bonds with which she bound herself will stand. ⁸ But if her husband restrains her on the day that he heard it, then he will make her vow which she vowed and that which she uttered with her lips, with which she bound herself, of no effect, and the Lord will forgive her.

⁹ But every vow of a widow and of her that is divorced, with which she has bound herself, will stand against her.

¹⁰ If she vowed in her husband’s house, or bound herself by a bond with an oath, ¹¹ and her husband heard it and was silent to her and did not restrain her, then all her vows will stand, and every bond with which she bound herself will stand. ¹² But if her husband has clearly voided them on the day he heard them, then whatever proceeded out of her lips concerning her vows, or concerning the bond of herself, will not stand. Her husband has voided them, and the Lord will forgive her. ¹³ Every vow, and every binding oath to afflict her soul, her husband may establish, or her husband may nullify. ¹⁴ But if her husband says nothing to her from day to day, then he confirms all her vows, or all her pledges, which bind her. He confirms them because he said nothing to her on the day that he heard them. ¹⁵ But if he clearly makes them void after he has heard them, then he will bear her iniquity.

¹⁶ These are the statutes which the Lord commanded Moses, between a man and his wife, and between the father and his daughter, while she is still young and in her father’s house.