(A)If any case is too difficult for you to decide, between [a]one kind of homicide or another, between [b]one kind of lawsuit or another, and between [c]one kind of assault or another, being cases of dispute in your [d]courts, then you shall arise and go up to (B)the place which the Lord your God chooses. So you shall come to (C)the Levitical priest or the judge who is in office in those days, and you shall inquire of them and they will declare to you the verdict in the case. 10 You shall do according to the [e]terms of the verdict which they declare to you from that place which the Lord chooses; and you shall be careful to observe according to all that they teach you. 11 (D)According to the [f]terms of the law which they teach you, and according to the verdict which they tell you, you shall do; you shall not turn aside from the word which they declare to you, to the right or the left. 12 The man who acts (E)presumptuously by not listening to the priest who stands there to serve the Lord your God, nor to the judge, that man shall die; thus you shall purge the evil from Israel. 13 Then all the people will hear and be afraid, and will not act (F)presumptuously again.

14 “When you enter the land which the Lord your God gives you, and you (G)possess it and live in it, and you say, ‘(H)I will set a king over me like all the nations who are around me,’ 15 you shall surely set a king over you whom the Lord your God chooses, one (I)from among your [g]countrymen you shall set as king over yourselves; you may not put a foreigner over yourselves who is not your [h]countryman. 16 (J)Moreover, he shall not multiply horses for himself, nor shall he (K)cause the people to return to Egypt to multiply horses, since (L)the Lord has said to you, ‘You shall never again return that way.’ 17 (M)He shall not multiply wives for himself, [i]or else his heart will turn away; nor shall he greatly increase silver and gold for himself.

18 “Now it shall come about when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself a copy of this law on a scroll [j](N)in the presence of the Levitical priests. 19 It shall be with him and he shall read it (O)all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, [k]by carefully observing all the words of this law and these statutes,

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Footnotes

  1. Deuteronomy 17:8 Lit blood to blood
  2. Deuteronomy 17:8 Lit judgment to judgment
  3. Deuteronomy 17:8 Lit stroke to stroke
  4. Deuteronomy 17:8 Lit gates
  5. Deuteronomy 17:10 Lit mouth
  6. Deuteronomy 17:11 Lit mouth
  7. Deuteronomy 17:15 Lit brother(s)
  8. Deuteronomy 17:15 Lit brother(s)
  9. Deuteronomy 17:17 Lit nor
  10. Deuteronomy 17:18 Lit from before
  11. Deuteronomy 17:19 Lit to keep to do them