Deuteronomy 17

¹You shall not sacrifice to the LORD your God an ox or a sheep that has a blemish, any bad thing, for it is an abomination to the LORD your God.

²If there is found among you, in one of your gates that the LORD your God is giving you, a man or a woman who does what is evil in the eyes of the LORD your God, by transgressing his covenant,

³and he went and served other gods and bowed down to them, and to the sun, or to the moon, or to all the host of heaven, which I have not commanded.

⁴and it is reported to you and you hear, and you inquire carefully, and behold it is true -- the matter is established -- this abomination has been done in Israel,

⁵Then you shall bring out that man or that woman who has done this evil thing to your gates, that man or that woman, and you shall stone them with stones so that they die.

⁶On the testimony of two witnesses, or three witnesses, shall the one condemned be put to death; he shall not be put to death on the testimony of one witness.

⁷The hand of the witnesses shall be against him first to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.

⁸If a matter is too difficult for you in judgment, between blood and blood, between case and case, or between blow and blow -- matters of disputes in your gates -- then you shall arise and go up to the place that the LORD your God shall choose.

⁹And you shall come to the Levitical priests and to the judge who is in office in those days, and you shall inquire, and they shall declare to you the verdict of the case.

¹⁰And you shall do according to the decision that they declare to you from that place that the LORD chooses, and you shall be careful to do according to all that they instruct you.

¹¹According to the instruction that they instruct you, and according to the judgment that they declare to you, you shall do; you shall not turn aside from the word that they tell you, to the right or to the left.

¹²And the man who acts presumptuously by not listening to the priest who stands there to minister to the LORD your God, or to the judge -- that man shall die; and you shall purge the evil from Israel.

¹³And all the people will hear and fear, and will not act presumptuously any more.

¹⁴When you come to the land that the Lord your God is giving to you, and you take possession of it and dwell in it, and you say, 'Let me set a king over me, like all the nations that are around me' --

¹⁵You shall without fail set over yourself a king whom the LORD your God shall choose; from among your kinsmen you shall set over yourself a king -- you may not put over yourself a foreign man who is not your kinsman.

¹⁶Only he shall not multiply horses for himself, and he shall not cause the people to return to Egypt in order to multiply horses, since the LORD has said to you all, 'You shall not return by this way ever again.'

¹⁷And he shall not multiply wives for himself, so that his heart does not turn aside; and silver and gold he shall not multiply greatly for himself.

¹⁸And when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself a copy of this instruction on a scroll, from before the Levitical priests.

¹⁹And it 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, to keep all the words of this instruction and these statutes, to do them.

²⁰so that his heart may not be exalted above his brothers, and that he may not turn aside from the commandment to the right or to the left, so that he may prolong his days over his kingdom, he and his sons, in the midst of Israel.