Laws about Vows
(Matthew 5:33–37)

1And Moses spoke to the heads of the tribes concerning the sons of Israel, saying, “This is the thing that YHWH has commanded: 2If a man makes a vow to YHWH or swears an oath to bind by some binding obligation on his soul, he shall not break his word; according to all that proceeds out of his mouth, he shall do.†

3Or if a woman makes a vow to YHWH and binds herself by some binding obligation while in the house of her father in her youth, 4and her father hears her vow and the binding obligation by which she has bound on her soul, and her father keeps silent to her, all her vows shall stand, and every binding obligation that she has bound upon her soul shall stand. 5But if her father forbids her on the day that he hears, then any of her vows or her binding obligations by which she has bound on her soul shall not stand; and YHWH will release her, because her father forbade her.

6And if she is at all unto a husband, and her vows are on her, or a rash utterance from her lips by which she bound on her soul, 7and her husband hears it on the day that he hears, and makes no response to her, her vows shall stand, and her binding obligations by which she bound on her soul shall stand. 8But if, on the day that he hears it, her husband forbids her, he makes void her vow that she took and the rash utterance of her lips by which she bound on her soul, and YHWH will release her.

9And a vow of a widow or a divorced woman, any by which she has bound upon her soul shall stand against her.

10And if she has vowed in the house of her husband or bound by a binding obligation upon her soul with an oath, 11and her husband heard it and made no response to her and did not overrule her, all her vows shall stand, and every binding obligation by which she bound on her soul shall stand. 12But if her husband surely has nullified them on the day he heard them, then whatever proceeded from her lips concerning her vows or concerning the bond of her soul, it shall not stand; her husband has made them void, and YHWH will release her.

13Every vow, and every sworn binding obligation to afflict her soul,† her husband may confirm it or her husband may make it void. 14And if her husband keeps silent to her from day to day, he confirms all her vows, or all the binding obligations that bind her; he confirms them because he surely remained silent to her on the day that he heard them. 15But if he surely nullifies them after he has heard them, then he shall bear her iniquity.”

16These are the statutes that YHWH commanded Moses between a man and his wife, and between a father and his daughter in her youth in the house of her father.