Or have found that which was lost, and lies concerning it, and swears falsely; in any of all these that a man does, sinning therein:
Or have found that which was lost, and lies concerning it, and swears falsely; in any of all these that a man does, sinning therein:
or have found that which was lost, and deal falsely therein, and swear to a lie; in any of all these things that a man doeth, sinning therein;
Or has taken a false oath about the loss of something which he has come across by chance; if a man has done any of these evil things,
Or hath found that which was lost, and lieth concerning it, and sweareth falsely; in any of all these that a man doeth, sinning therein:
or has found that which was lost, and dealt falsely therein, and swearing to a lie; in any of all these things that a man does, sinning therein;
or have found that which was lost, and deal falsely thereto, and swear to a lie; in any of all these that a man doeth, sinning therein:
Have found that which was lost - The Roman lawyers laid it down as a sound maxim of jurisprudence, "that he who found any property and applied it to his own use, should be considered as a thief whether he knew the owner or not; for in their view the crime was not lessened, supposing the finder was totally ignorant of the right owner." Qui alienum quid jacens lucri faciendi causa sustulit, furti obstringitur, sive scit, cujus sit, sive ignoravit; nihil enim ad furtum minuendum, facit, quod, cujus sit, ignoret - Digestor, lib. xlvii., Tit. ii., de furtis, Leg. xliii., sec. 4. On this subject every honest man must say, that the man who finds any lost property, and does not make all due inquiry to find out the owner, should, in sound policy, be treated as a thief. It is said of the Dyrbaeans, a people who inhabited the tract between Bactria and India, that if they met with any lost property, even on the public road, they never even touched it. This was actually the case in this kingdom in the time of Alfred the Great, about a. d. 888; so that golden bracelets hung up on the public roads were untouched by the finger of rapine. One of Solon's laws was, Take not up what you laid not down. How easy to act by this principle in case of finding lost property: "This is not mine, and it would be criminal to convert it to my use unless the owner be dead and his family extinct." When all due inquiry is made, if no owner can be found, the lost property may be legally considered to be the property of the finder.
6:3 Swear falsely - His oath being required, seeing there was no other way of discovery left.