DEUTERONOMY 17

You shall not sacrifice to Yehowah your God a bull or a lamb in which there is a blemish or any defect; for that is an abhorrence to Yehowah your God.

2 If there is found among you, within any of your gates which Yehowah your God gives you, a man or a woman who does what is evil in the sight of Yehowah your God, in- transgressing his covenant, 3 and has gone and served other gods, and bowed down to them, or to the sun or the moon or any of the host of heaven (which I have forbidden), 4 and it is told to you, and you hear of it, then you shall inquire diligently; and if it is true and certain that this abhorrent thing has been done in Israel, 5 then you shall bring to your gates that man or woman who has done this evil thing, and you shall stone that man or woman to death. 6 On the evidence of two witnesses, or of three witnesses, he who is to die shall be put to death; he shall not be put to death on the evidence of one witness only. 7 The hands of the witnesses shall be the first against him to put him to death, and afterwards the hands of all the people. So you shall purge this evil from your midst.

8 If any matter arises which is too difficult for you to judge, a question of murder, of legal rights, or of assault, being matters of dispute within your gates, then you shall arise and go up to the place which Yehowah your God will choose; 9 and you shall come to the Levite priests, and to the judge who holds office in those days, and you shall consult them; and they shall declare to you the legal decision.* 10 And you shall act according to the decision which they declare to you from that place which Yehowah will choose, and you shall take care to act in accordance with all that they teach you. 11 You shall act according to the law which they teach you and the judgment which they pronounce to you; you shall not turn aside from the decision which they declare to you, to the right or the left. 12 And the man who acts presumptuously, by not obeying the priest who stands to minister there before Yehowah your God, or by not obeying the judge, that man shall die; so you shall purge this evil from Israel. 13 And all the people shall hear, and fear, and shall not act presumptuously any more. * lit the word of judgment

14 When you come to the land which Yehowah your God gives you, and you possess it and live in it, and then say, I will set a king over myself, like all the nations around me, 15 you may indeed set over yourselves a king whom Yehowah your God will choose. You shall set over yourselves a king from among your brothers; you shall not set over yourselves a foreigner, who is not your brother. 16 But he must not multiply horses for himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt in order to multiply horses, because Yehowah has said to you, You shall never again return that way. 17 Nor must he multiply wives for himself, or else his heart will turn away; nor shall he greatly multiply silver and gold for himself.

18 And when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself on a scroll a copy of this law from the one in the care of the Levite priests. 19 And it shall be beside him, and he shall read it every day of his life, so that he may learn to fear Yehowah his God, keeping all the words of this law and these statutes, and observing them; 20 so that his heart is not lifted up above his brothers, and so that he does not turn aside from the commandment, to the right or the left; so that he may lengthen his reign, he and his sons, in the midst of Israel.