Deut 17
1
You shall not sacrifice to YHWH your God an ox, or a sheep, wherein is a blemish,
[or] anything evil; for that is an abomination to YHWH your God.
2
If there be found in the midst of you, within any of your gates which YHWH your God
gives you, man or woman, that does that which is evil in the sight of YHWH your God,
in transgressing his covenant,
3
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 not commanded;
4
and it be told you, and you have heard of it, then shall you inquire diligently; and,
behold, if it be true, and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrought in
Israel,
5
then shall you bring forth that man or that woman, who has done this evil thing, to
your gates, even the man or the woman; and you shall stone them to death with stones.
6
At the mouth of two witnesses, or three witnesses, shall he who is to die be put to
death; at the mouth of one witness he shall not be put to death.
7
The hand of the witnesses shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterward
the hand of all the people. So you shall put away the evil from the midst of you.
8
If there arise a matter too hard for you in judgment, between blood and blood, between
plea and plea, and between stroke and stroke, being matters of controversy within
your gates; then shall you arise, and get you up to the place which YHWH your God
shall choose;
9
and you shall come to the priests the Levites, and to the judge that shall be in those
days: and you shall inquire; and they shall show you the sentence of judgment.
10
And you shall do according to the tenor of the sentence which they shall show you
from that place which YHWH shall choose; and you shall observe to do according to
all that they shall teach you:
11
according to the tenor of the law which they shall teach you, and according to the
judgment which they shall tell you, you shall do; you shall not turn aside from the
sentence which they shall show you, to the right hand, nor to the left.
12
And the man that does presumptuously, in not hearkening to the priest that stands
to minister there before YHWH your God, or to the judge, even that man shall die:
and you shall put away the evil from Israel.
13
And all the people shall hear, and fear, and do no more presumptuously.
14
When you are come to the land which YHWH your God gives you, and shall possess it,
and shall dwell therein, and shall say, I will set a king over me, like all the nations
that are round about me;
15
you shall surely set him king over you, whom YHWH your God shall choose: one from
among your brethren shall you set king over you; you may not put a foreigner over
you, who is not your brother.
16
Only he shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt,
to the end that he may multiply horses; seeing that as YHWH has said to you, You shall
henceforth return no more that way.
17
Neither shall he multiply wives to himself, that his heart turn not away: neither
shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold.
18
And it shall be, when he sits upon the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write
him a copy of this law in a book, out of [that which is] before the priests the Levites:
19
and it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life; that
he may learn to fear YHWH his God, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes,
to do them;
20
that his heart be not lifted up above his brethren, and that he turn not aside from
the commandment, to the right hand, or to the left: to the end that he may prolong
his days in his kingdom, he and his children, in the midst of Israel.