Deuteronomy 17:8-13

International Standard Version

Deciding Difficult Cases

⁸ “If a case is too difficult for you to decide with respect to bloodshed,^[a] civil claims,^[b] assault and battery,^[c] or other matters of dispute within your courts,^[d] bring^[e] it to the place that the Lord your God will choose. ⁹ Present the case^[f] to the Levitical priest or the judge at that time. When you have inquired and they have announced the verdict, ¹⁰ carry out the verdict that was declared to you at the place that the Lord will choose. Carefully observe all of their instructions to you ¹¹ in accordance with what the Law says and in accordance with the verdict that will be handed to you. You must not deviate from the verdict that they declare to you either to the right or to the left. ¹² If a man presumptuously disregards the priest who is serving the Lord your God there, or the judge, that person must die so you will purge evil from Israel. ¹³ Then all the people who hear will be afraid and will not act presumptuously again.”