Deuteronomy 18:9-19:21

English Standard Version

Abominable Practices

⁹“When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you, ^(A)you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations. ¹⁰There shall not be found among you anyone ^(B)who burns his son or his daughter as an offering,^[a] anyone who ^(C)practices divination or ^(D)tells fortunes or interprets omens, or ^(E)a sorcerer ¹¹or a charmer or ^(F)a medium or a necromancer or ^(G)one who inquires of the dead, ¹²^(H)for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord. And ^(I)because of these abominations the Lord your God is driving them out before you. ¹³You shall be blameless before the Lord your God, ¹⁴for these nations, which you are about to dispossess, listen to fortune-tellers and to diviners. But as for you, the Lord your God has not allowed you to do this.

A New Prophet like Moses

¹⁵^(J)“The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen— ¹⁶just as you desired of the Lord your God at Horeb ^(K)on the day of the assembly, when you said, ^(L)‘Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God or see this great fire any more, lest I die.’ ¹⁷And the Lord said to me, ^(M)‘They are right in what they have spoken. ¹⁸^(N)I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. ^(O)And I will put my words in his mouth, and ^(P)he shall speak to them all that I command him. ¹⁹^(Q)And whoever will ^(R)not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him. ²⁰^(S)But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name that I have not commanded him to speak, or^[b] who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die.’ ²¹And if you say in your heart, ‘How may we know the word that the Lord has not spoken?’— ²²^(T)when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the Lord has not spoken; ^(U)the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him.

Laws Concerning Cities of Refuge

19 “When ^(V)the Lord your God cuts off the nations whose land the Lord your God is giving you, and you dispossess them and dwell in their cities and in their houses, ²^(W)you shall set apart three cities for yourselves in the land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess. ³You shall measure the distances^[c] and divide into three parts the area of the land that the Lord your God gives you as a possession, so that any manslayer can flee to them.

⁴“This is the provision for ^(X)the manslayer, who by fleeing there may save his life. If anyone kills his neighbor unintentionally without having hated him in the past— ⁵as when someone goes into the forest with his neighbor to cut wood, and his hand swings the axe to cut down a tree, and the head slips from the handle and strikes his neighbor so that he dies—he may flee to one of these cities and live, ⁶lest ^(Y)the avenger of blood in hot anger pursue the manslayer and overtake him, because the way is long, and strike him fatally, though the man did not deserve to die, since he had not hated his neighbor in the past. ⁷Therefore I command you, You shall set apart three cities. ⁸^(Z)And if the Lord your God enlarges your territory, ^(AA)as he has sworn to your fathers, and ^(AB)gives you all the land that he promised to give to your fathers— ⁹provided you are careful to keep all this commandment, which I command you today, by loving the Lord your God and by walking ever in his ways—^(AC)then you shall add three other cities to these three, ¹⁰lest innocent blood be shed in your land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance, and so the guilt of bloodshed be upon you.

¹¹“But if anyone hates his neighbor and lies in wait for him and attacks him ^(AD)and strikes him fatally so that he dies, and he flees into one of these cities, ¹²then the elders of his city shall send and take him from there, and hand him over to the avenger of blood, so that he may die. ¹³^(AE)Your eye shall not pity him, ^(AF)but you shall purge the guilt of innocent blood^[d] from Israel, so that it may be well with you.

Property Boundaries

¹⁴^(AG)“You shall not move your neighbor's landmark, which the men of old have set, in the inheritance that you will hold in the land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess.

Laws Concerning Witnesses

¹⁵“A single witness shall not suffice against a person for any crime or for any wrong in connection with any offense that he has committed. ^(AH)Only on the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses shall a charge be established. ¹⁶If ^(AI)a malicious witness arises to accuse a person of wrongdoing, ¹⁷then both parties to the dispute shall appear before the Lord, ^(AJ)before the priests and the judges who are in office in those days. ¹⁸The judges shall ^(AK)inquire diligently, and if the witness is a false witness and has accused his brother falsely, ¹⁹^(AL)then you shall do to him as he had meant to do to his brother. So you shall purge the evil^[e] from your midst. ²⁰And the rest ^(AM)shall hear and fear, and shall never again commit any such evil among you. ²¹^(AN)Your eye shall not pity. ^(AO)It shall be life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.