Beginning

17 Moses: Don’t sacrifice an ox or a sheep to the Eternal your God if it has any defect or problem. He would be deeply offended by such an offering!

² What if, in one of the towns the Eternal your God is giving you, a man or a woman does what He considers wrong and breaks His covenant ³ by going and worshiping other gods, bowing down to them or the sun or moon or stars (which I’ve never commanded you to do)? ⁴ If you discover this, if someone tells you about it, or if you hear about it; then conduct a careful investigation. If you establish conclusively that the report is true, that such a horrible thing has been done within Israel, ⁵ then bring the man or woman who has done this evil thing out to the gates of your town, and stone that man or woman to death. ⁶ But for someone to be executed on a charge such as this, there must be testimony from at least two or three witnesses. No one is to be executed on the testimony of just one witness. ⁷ The witnesses must throw the first deadly stones, and then everyone else must join in. Expel the wicked from your own community.^[a]

⁸ If one person in your town brings a complaint against another to be judged at the city gate, and it’s just too difficult for you to decide what a fair resolution would be—if you can’t determine whether a killing was premeditated, or if you can’t decide who in a dispute makes the best argument, or if you can’t tell whether someone was injured accidentally or intentionally—then adjourn your proceedings and go to the place the Eternal your God will choose. ⁹ Bring your case to the Levitical priests and to the judge who is serving at the time, and they will give you a verdict. ¹⁰ You must carry out their verdict exactly as they stated it because it was delivered in the place the Eternal chose, and it has His authority behind it. ¹¹ Follow each word of the law as they interpret it for you; do everything they’ve told you to do, as they’ve explained it, without deviating from it at all. ¹² If anyone is so arrogant that he won’t listen to the priest who serves right there in the presence of the Eternal your God or to the judge of the tribunal, that person must be executed to expel this kind of wickedness from Israel. ¹³ Everyone will hear about it, and no one will dare to be so arrogant, for they will be afraid.

Moses: ¹⁴ Once you’ve gotten into the land the Eternal your God is giving you, and you’ve conquered it and settled there, you may say to yourselves, “Let’s appoint a king to rule our country, just as all the nations around us have!” ¹⁵ If you do have a king, remember you must enthrone the king He chooses. It must be a fellow Israelite whom you enthrone; you must not enthrone a foreigner who is not a fellow Israelite. ¹⁶ Although an Israelite, he must not try to build a strong army by collecting large herds of horses for his cavalry troops and a chariot corps. The king must certainly not send people back to Egypt to get large herds of horses, because the Lord has commanded you, “Don’t ever go back that way again!” ¹⁷ This king must not have many wives. If he takes foreign wives in marriage alliances, they could turn his heart away from the Lord and lead him to worship foreign gods. And the king must not accumulate great quantities of silver and gold for himself.

¹⁸ As soon as this king takes the royal throne, he must write out a copy of this law for himself on a scroll with the Levitical priests looking on. ¹⁹ He must keep this copy with him and read it every day, so that he will learn to fear the Eternal his God and to obey everything in the law and remember all these regulations very carefully in order to do them. ²⁰ That way he won’t think he’s privileged and oppress and exploit his fellow Israelites. He won’t deviate at all from what the Eternal has commanded, and he and his descendants will rule over Israel in a long dynasty.

18 Moses: The Levitical priests and the whole tribe of Levi will not have any inherited property within Israel. They will be supported by the sacrifices and other offerings that are burnt and set aside for the Eternal. ² They won’t have any share in the land, as the other Israelites do, but the Eternal Himself will be their share as He promised.

Moses: ¹⁴ The nations you’re going to displace seek guidance from people who practice divination and predicting. But the Eternal your God doesn’t want you to do that. ¹⁵ He will raise up from among your own people a prophet who will be like me.^[c] Listen to him. ¹⁶ This is just what you asked Him for on the day you gathered at Mount Horeb: “Don’t make me listen to the voice of the Eternal my God anymore! And don’t make me look at that blazing fire! I’ll die!”^{[d] 17} The Eternal told me, “They’re right. ¹⁸ I’ll send them another prophet like you from among their own people. I’ll put My words in the mouth of this prophet who will tell them everything I command him to say. ¹⁹ I, Myself, will punish whoever doesn’t listen to his words^[e] when the prophet speaks in My name. ²⁰ But a prophet who dares to say anything in My name that I haven’t commanded, or who says anything in the name of another god, will die.” ²¹ Now you may be wondering, “How will we recognize something He hasn’t commanded a prophet to say?” ²² If a prophet speaks in the Eternal One’s name, but the words turn out not to be true or the prediction doesn’t happen, then He wasn’t actually speaking. That prophet arrogantly spoke in the Lord’s name, but he didn’t really have a message from Him. And so you don’t need to be afraid of what the prophet said.

19 Moses: When the Eternal your God has destroyed the nations whose land He’s going to give you, when you’ve driven them out and have settled in their cities and are living in their houses, ^2-3 then designate three cities of refuge for yourselves in the land He is giving you to live in. Divide your territory into three parts, locate one city centrally in each part, and measure the roads to each of them. That way a person who kills someone accidentally can escape to one of these cities and be safe from revenge.

⁴ This is the kind of person I’m talking about: someone who kills a friend unintentionally, when there was no grudge between them, ⁵ such as when two friends go into the forest together to chop wood, and one of them swings an ax to cut a tree, and the ax head slips off the handle, hits his friend, and kills him. A person such as he can flee to one of these cities and be safe from revenge. ⁶ Otherwise, if the distance to the nearest city of refuge is too great, one of the relatives of the friend who was killed is going to feel honor-bound to avenge the dead man’s blood, and he’ll catch up with him and kill him while he’s still furious about his relative’s death. This wouldn’t be right because the man slaughterer didn’t deserve the death sentence. There was no grudge between these friends—the death was accidental. ⁷ That’s why I’m commanding you to designate these three cities for yourselves. ^8-9 Now if you carefully obey the command I’m giving you today, to love the Eternal your God and always do as He wishes, then He will expand your territory as He promised your ancestors; He’ll give you all the land He told your ancestors He’d give them. If that happens, then designate three more cities for yourselves, besides the first three. ¹⁰ That way no innocent blood will be shed in the land He is giving you to live in, and as a nation you won’t have any bloodguilt just because a city of refuge was too far away.

¹¹ But someone who does hate another person, who ambushes and kills that person can’t escape revenge by fleeing to one of these cities. ¹² The elders of his city must send representatives to bring the killer back and turn him over to the blood-avenger, the relative of the murder victim who will kill him. ¹³ Don’t show any pity! You must remove the stain of innocent blood from Israel, so that everything will go well for you.

¹⁴ Don’t steal land from your neighbor by moving the boundary marker your ancestors put in place. Each person’s property is an inheritance from the Eternal, who’s giving you this land to live in.

¹⁵ The testimony of a single witness is not sufficient to convict a person of a crime or to find someone guilty of doing something wrong. Every charge must be confirmed by two or three witnesses.^{[f] 16} If one person accuses another of some crime, and you suspect it’s being done out of malice, ¹⁷ bring the two people involved into the Eternal’s presence at the sanctuary. Present their case to the priests and the judges who are serving on the tribunal at the time. ¹⁸ The judges will conduct a careful investigation. If it turns out that the witness was lying and accused the other Israelite maliciously, ^19-21 then do to the witness exactly what he wanted done to the other person. Don’t show any pity! If he wanted the other person killed, then kill him; if he wanted his eye put out or a tooth knocked out or a hand or foot cut off, then do that to him.^[g] This will expel the wicked from your own community. Everyone else will hear what happens and be afraid to do the same thing themselves, so none of you will ever do such an evil thing to each other again.

20 Moses: This is how you should act during wartime: When you go to battle against your enemies, if you see their army is larger than yours and they have horses and chariots, don’t be afraid of them! The Eternal your God is with you—the same God who defeated Pharaoh and brought you out of Egypt. ² As you are approaching the battlefield, your priest will come over to you and address you: ³ “Listen, Israel! Today you’re going to fight a battle against your enemies. Don’t be intimidated by them! Don’t be afraid! Don’t run away! Don’t let them terrify you! ⁴ The Eternal, your True God, has come out here with you, and He’ll fight for you against your enemies and save you.” ⁵ Then the officials will say to the people who are eligible for a deferment, “Has anyone just built a new house but hasn’t begun to use it yet? Go back to your house, because if you died in this battle, someone else would dedicate it. ⁶ Has anyone planted a vineyard but hasn’t enjoyed its fruit yet? Go back to your house, because if you died in this battle, someone else would be the first to enjoy its fruit. ⁷ Has anyone become engaged to a woman but hasn’t consummated the marriage? Go back to your house, because if you died in this battle, someone else would take her.” ⁸ They’ll continue, “Is anyone here afraid or intimidated? You can go back home too! We don’t want you to make everyone else as scared as you are!” ⁹ When the officials have finished speaking to the troops, they’ll appoint commanders to lead each section of the army.

¹⁰ When you first approach a city you’re going to fight against, shout out, “Peace!” ¹¹ If they shout back, “Peace!” and open their gates to you, then you must let them surrender. Make everyone in the city your slaves, and put them to work for you. ¹² But if the city doesn’t surrender, if it resists you instead, then lay siege to it. ¹³ When the Eternal your God enables you to capture the city, kill all the men who are left in it with your swords. ¹⁴ But you can take the women, children, livestock, all the other goods in the city, and all of its spoils as your plunder for your use. The Eternal your God has given you these spoils from your enemies.

¹⁵ This is what you’re to do with cities that are a great distance from you that don’t belong to the nations living here. ¹⁶ But when you conquer one of the cities the Eternal, your True God, is giving you to live in and pass on to your children, don’t spare anything that breathes! ¹⁷ If it’s a city that belongs to the Hittites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, or the Jebusites, then completely destroy the inhabitants as He has commanded you. ¹⁸ If you don’t, they’ll teach you to do all the horrible things they do for their gods, and you’ll sin against Him.

¹⁹ When you’re fighting against a city, and it hasn’t fallen to you even after a long siege, don’t chop down all the trees around it. You can eat the fruit and nuts they produce, so don’t cut them down. Are these trees humans who are resisting your siege? Of course not! ²⁰ Only cut down the trees you know don’t produce any food. You can use them to build siege machines against the city you’re fighting with until it falls.