Deuteronomy
Chapter 17
1 Do not offer to God any bull or sheep that has a defect or any bad quality, because that is something God hates.
2 If you find someone in any of your towns that God gave you, man or woman, who has done evil in God’s eyes by breaking his agreement,
3 He left to serve other gods and worshiped them, the sun, moon, or any stars, which I did not command.
4 If someone tells you about this and you hear it, then you carefully check and find out it’s true and this terrible thing has happened in Israel.
5 Then you must take the man or woman who did the evil thing to your city gates, and stone them to death.
6 If two or three people say someone must die, then they can be killed; but if only one person says it, they cannot be killed.
7 The witnesses must be the first to punish him with death, and then everyone else. This is how you will remove evil from among you.
8 If you face a difficult case in court, whether it’s a dispute about harm, legal claims, or injury, which is causing conflict in your community, then you should go to the location that God has selected.
9 You will go to the Levite priests and the judge who is in office at that time and ask; and they will tell you the decision of the court.
10 You must follow the decision the leaders at the place God chooses give you; do everything they tell you.
11 Follow the law they teach you and the decision they give you without turning to the right or left from what they tell you.
12 If someone acts arrogantly and does not listen to the priest serving before God, or to the judge, that person must be put to death. This will remove the evil from among you.
13 Everyone will hear, be afraid, and stop acting arrogantly.
14 When you arrive in the land that God gives you, and you live there, and you decide, “I want to have a king like the other nations around me;”
15 You must definitely make the man whom God chooses the king over you; he must be one of your own people. Do not make a foreigner who is not your brother your king.
16 He should not collect many horses, or make the people go back to Egypt to get more horses, because God told you not to go back that way again.
17 He must not have many wives so his heart won’t be led astray; nor should he gather lots of silver and gold for himself.
18 When he becomes king and sits on his throne, he must write for himself a copy of this law from the book in the presence of the Levite priests.
19 He should keep it with him and read it every day of his life. This will help him respect God and follow all the instructions and rules written in it.
20 So that he doesn’t think he’s better than his brothers, and so he doesn’t ignore God’s commandments, either by going too far right or left, so that he and his children may live a long time ruling over Israel.