Deuteronomy 17

1Do not sacrifice to Yahweh your God an ox or sheep in which there is a blemish, any evil thing, for that is an abomination to Yahweh your God.

2If someone is found among you, in one of your gates that Yahweh your God gives you—a man or woman who does what is evil in the sight of Yahweh your God by transgressing his covenant,

3and has gone and served other gods and bowed down to them, or the sun, or the moon, or any of the army of the heavens, which I have not commanded.

4If it is told to you and you hear it, and you inquire thoroughly, and indeed it is true and the matter confirmed that this abomination has been done in Israel.

5You shall bring out to your gates that man or that woman who have done this evil deed—that man or that woman—and stone them with stones, and they shall die.

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

7The hands of the witnesses shall put him to death first, and afterward the hands of all the people. Thus you shall purge the evil from among you.

8If a matter is too difficult for you in judgment—between blood and blood, between plea and plea, and between plague and plague, words of controversy in your gates—then arise and go up to the place that Yahweh your God will choose.

9Go to the priests, the Levites, and the judge who will be in those days, inquire, and they will declare the matter of judgment to you.

10You shall do according to the ruling they declare to you from that place which Yahweh shall choose, and you shall take care to do according to all that they direct you.

11According to the ruling of the law which they teach you, and according to the judgment which they tell you, you shall do; you shall not turn aside from the word which they declare to you, to the right hand nor to the left.

12The man who acts presumptuously by refusing to listen to the priest standing to serve there before Yahweh your God, or to the judge, shall die—that man—and you shall purge the evil from Israel.

13All the people will hear and fear, and presume no more.

14When you come to the land that Yahweh your God is giving you, and possess it and dwell in it, and say, "I will set a king over me, like all the nations around me";

15You shall surely appoint a king over you, whom Yahweh your God chooses; from among your brothers you shall appoint a king over you—you may not set a foreign man over you, who is not your brother.

16But he must not multiply horses for himself, nor turn the people back to Egypt in order to multiply horses, for Yahweh has said to you, "You shall not return by this way again."

17He must not multiply wives for himself, lest his heart turn away, nor greatly multiply silver and gold for himself.

18When he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write a copy of this law for himself in a book from before the priests, the Levites.

19It will be with him, and he will read from it all the days of his life, so he learns to fear Yahweh his God, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes, to carry them out.

20so his heart may not exalt itself above his brothers, nor may he turn aside from the commandment to the right or the left, in order that he may prolong his days over his kingdom—he and his sons amid Israel.