But if you have gone astray while married to your husband and you have made yourself impure by having sexual relations with a man other than your husband”— 21 here the priest is to put the woman under this curse—“may the Lord cause you to become a curse[b] among your people when he makes your womb miscarry and your abdomen swell. 22 May this water that brings a curse enter your body so that your abdomen swells or your womb miscarries.”
“‘Then the woman is to say, “Amen. So be it.”
23 “‘The priest is to write these curses on a scroll and then wash them off into the bitter water. 24 He shall make the woman drink the bitter water that brings a curse, and this water that brings a curse and causes bitter suffering will enter her. 25 The priest is to take from her hands the grain offering for jealousy, wave it before the Lord and bring it to the altar. 26 The priest is then to take a handful of the grain offering as a memorial[c] offering and burn it on the altar; after that, he is to have the woman drink the water. 27 If she has made herself impure and been unfaithful to her husband, this will be the result: When she is made to drink the water that brings a curse and causes bitter suffering, it will enter her, her abdomen will swell and her womb will miscarry, and she will become a curse. 28 If, however, the woman has not made herself impure, but is clean, she will be cleared of guilt and will be able to have children.
That’s about infertility. The NIV isn’t a very good translation and focuses less on what the text actually says and easy readability. A more accurate translation is the NRSV (although the ESV or even the KJV doesn’t make this mistake- although it depends on whether you want to translate “thigh” as “womb” or literally render it, as thigh is a euphemism. However, the word “miscarry” in the sense that we understand it is not there)
[27] When he has made her drink the water, then, if she has defiled herself and has been unfaithful to her husband, the water that brings the curse shall enter into her and cause bitter pain, and her womb shall discharge, her uterus drop, and the woman shall become an execration among her people. [28] But if the woman has not defiled herself and is clean, then she shall be immune and be able to conceive children.
Verse 28 says “be able to conceive children”. It’s quite clear that she wasn’t already pregnant at this point.
Dude what, no, it’s saying hey if you’re not preggers you can still make a baby. If you’ve “defiled [your]self” then you’re gonna have an abortion when you drink that water. Very explicitly that’s what is being communicated through the text.
Dancing around translations is just some hand waving bullshit, also maybe we should consider the text isn’t some infallible word of God when you’re saying a different translation changes the meaning of passages. Just as an aside.
I just picked the first translation the Google search gave. Feel free to read your same thing phrased some other way in another translation.
Besides that is the only thing the Bible actually says about abortion. The anti abortion stuff is a very modern thing.
It’s always endlessly fascinating to me how “fundamentalists” think God speaks in metaphor only when it’s convenient for them personally.
That’s not up to you. All scripture is God breathed. Are you saying that God would allow his one and only true word to be mistranslated so poorly? Shame on you.
It is obviously both. A woman could be pregnant or not and the same thing would happen either forcing a miscarriage (aka an abortion) or become infertile. There is no where that indicates the woman’s current state of pregnancy or lack thereof so it must be both.