“You shall not sacrifice to the LORD your God an ox or a sheep in
which is a blemish, any defect whatever, for that is an abomination
to the LORD your God.
“If there is found among you, within any of your towns that the
LORD your God is giving you, a man or woman who does what is evil
in the sight of the LORD your God, in transgressing his covenant,
and has gone and served other gods and worshiped them, or the sun
or the moon or any of the host of heaven, which I have forbidden,
and it is told you and you hear of it, then you shall inquire
diligently, and if it is true and certain that such an abomination
has been done in Israel, then you shall bring out to your gates
that man or woman who has done this evil thing, and you shall stone
that man or woman to death with stones. On the evidence of two
witnesses or of three witnesses the one who is to die shall be put
to death; a person shall not be put to death on the evidence of one
witness. The hand of the witnesses shall be first against him to
put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. So you
shall purge the evil from your midst.
“If any case arises requiring decision between one kind of
homicide and another, one kind of legal right and another, or one
kind of assault and another, any case within your towns that is too
difficult for you, then you shall arise and go up to the place that
the LORD your God will choose. And you shall come to the Levitical
priests and to the judge who is in office in those days, and you
shall consult them, and they shall declare to you the decision.
Then you shall do according to what they declare to you from that
place that the LORD will choose. And you shall be careful to do
according to all that they direct you. According to the
instructions that they give you, and according to the decision
which they pronounce to you, you shall do. You shall not turn aside
from the verdict that they declare to you, either to the right hand
or to the left. The man who acts presumptuously by not obeying the
priest who stands to minister there before the LORD your God, or
the judge, that man shall die. So you shall purge the evil from
Israel. And all the people shall hear and fear and not act
presumptuously again.
“When you come to the land that the LORD your God is giving you,
and you possess it and dwell in it and then say, ‘I will set a king
over me, like all the nations that are around me,’ you may indeed
set a king over you whom the LORD your God will choose. One from
among your brothers you shall set as king over you. You may not put
a foreigner over you, who is not your brother. Only he must not
acquire many horses for himself or cause the people to return to
Egypt in order to acquire many horses, since the LORD has said to
you, ‘You shall never return that way again.’ And he shall not
acquire many wives for himself, lest his heart turn away, nor shall
he acquire for himself excessive silver and gold.
“And when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write
for himself in a book a copy of this law, approved by the Levitical
priests. And it shall be with him, and he shall read in it all the
days of his life, that he may learn to fear the LORD his God by
keeping all the words of this law and these statutes, and doing
them, that his heart may not be lifted up above his brothers, and
that he may not turn aside from the commandment, either to the
right hand or to the left, so that he may continue long in his
kingdom, he and his children, in Israel.
