Deuteronomy 17

1Do not sacrifice to Yahweh your God an ox or a sheep that has a defect or any flaw, for that is detestable to Yahweh your God.

2Suppose a man or a woman is found among you, in one of the towns that Yahweh your God is giving you, who does what is evil in the eyes of Yahweh your God by breaking his covenant,

3and 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 not commanded.

4If you are told about it and hear of it, then investigate it thoroughly. If it is true and the matter is certain that this detestable thing has been done in Israel,

5then bring out to your city gates the man or woman who has done this evil thing, and stone that man or woman to death.

6On the testimony of two or three witnesses the one who is to die is to be put to death. No one is to be put to death on the testimony of only one witness.

7The hands of the witnesses must be the first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hands of all the people. So you must purge the evil from among you.

8If a case comes before you that is too difficult for you to judge—between one kind of bloodshed and another, one legal claim and another, or one kind of assault and another, matters of dispute within your towns—then get up and go to the place that Yahweh your God will choose.

9Go to the Levitical priests and to the judge who is in office at that time. Inquire of them, and they will declare to you the verdict.

10Then act according to the decision they declare to you from the place that Yahweh will choose. Be careful to do everything they instruct you.

11Act according to the instruction they give you and the verdict they declare to you. Do not turn aside from the decision they declare to you, to the right or to the left.

12Anyone who acts arrogantly and will not listen to the priest who stands there to serve Yahweh your God, or to the judge, must die. So you must purge the evil from Israel.

13All the people will hear and be afraid, and they will not act arrogantly again.

14When you come into the land that Yahweh your God is giving you, and you take possession of it and live in it, and you say, ‘I will set a king over me, like all the nations around me,’

15you must set over you the king whom Yahweh your God chooses. Set as king over you one from among your fellow Israelites. You may not put a foreigner over you, one who is not a fellow Israelite.

16But he must not acquire many horses for himself or send the people back to Egypt to get more horses, since Yahweh has told you, ‘You must never go back that way again.’

17He must not take many wives for himself, or his heart will turn away. He must not acquire great amounts of silver and gold for himself.

18When he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he must write for himself a copy of this law on a scroll in the presence of the Levitical priests.

19It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life, so that he may learn to fear Yahweh his God by keeping all the words of this law and these statutes and doing them,

20so that his heart may not be lifted up above his fellow Israelites and he may not turn aside from the commandment to the right or to the left, and so that he and his sons may reign long over his kingdom in Israel.