Deuteronomy 17

Sacrifices without Defect

1“You shall not sacrifice to the LORD your God an ox or sheep that has a defect, any serious flaw, for that is a detestable thing to the LORD your God.

If Someone Serves Other Gods

2“If there is found in your midst, within one of your gates that the LORD your God is giving you, a man or woman who does what is evil in the eyes of the LORD your God by transgressing his covenant, 3and goes and serves other gods and bows down to them, or to the sun, moon, or any of the host of the heavens, which I have not commanded, 4and it is told to you and you hear of it, then you shall inquire carefully. And look, if the thing is true and established that this detestable thing has been done in Israel, 5then you shall bring out that man or that woman who has done this evil thing to your gates—the man or the woman—and stone them with stones so that they die. 6On the mouth of two witnesses or three witnesses the one who is to die shall be put to death. The person shall not be put to death on the mouth of one witness. 7The hand of the witnesses shall be first against the person to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. So you shall remove the evil from your midst.

Difficult Cases Go to the Chosen Place

8“If a matter is too difficult for you in judgment, between blood and blood, between legal claim and legal claim, or between injury and injury, matters of dispute within your gates, then you shall arise and go up to the place that the LORD your God will choose. 9You shall come to the Levitical priests and to the judge who is in those days and inquire, and they shall declare to you the word of judgment. 10You shall act according to the word that they declare to you from that place that the LORD will choose, and you shall be careful to do according to all that they instruct you. 11According to the instruction that they teach you and according to the judgment that they speak to you, you shall act. You shall not turn aside from the word they declare to you, to the right or to the left. 12The man who acts presumptuously and does not listen to the priest who stands to minister there before the LORD your God or to the judge—that man shall die. So you shall remove the evil from Israel. 13All the people will hear and fear and will not act presumptuously again.

Instructions for a King

14“When you enter the land that the LORD your God is giving you and possess it and live in it, and you say, ‘I will set a king over me like all the nations that are around me,’ 15you shall surely set over you a king whom the LORD your God chooses. From among your brothers you shall set a king over you. You may not put over you a foreign man who is not your brother. 16Only he shall not multiply horses for himself or cause the people to return to Egypt in order to multiply horses, for the LORD has said to you, ‘You shall never again return by this way.’ 17He shall not multiply wives for himself, lest his heart turn aside, and he shall not greatly multiply silver and gold for himself. 18And when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself a copy of this instruction in a book, from before the Levitical priests. 19It shall be with him, and he shall read in it all the days of his life, so that he may learn to fear the LORD his God, keeping all the words of this instruction and these statutes, to do them, 20so 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 to the left, in order that he may prolong days over his kingdom, he and his sons, in the midst of Israel.