Beginning

17 You must not sacrifice to the Lord your God any bull or sheep that has a blemish or any defect, for that is detestable to the Lord your God.

² If there be found among you, within any of your gates which the Lord your God gives you, man or woman, who has acted wickedly in the sight of the Lord your God, by transgressing His covenant, ³ and has gone and served other gods and worshipped them, either the sun, or moon, or any of the host of heaven, which I have not commanded, ⁴ and if it is told to you, and you have heard of it, and investigated diligently, and it is true, and the matter is certain that such a detestable thing has happened in Israel, ⁵ then you must bring forth that man or that woman who has committed that wicked thing to your gates, that very man or woman, and stone them with stones until they die. ⁶ On the testimony of two or three witnesses he that is to die must be put to death, but on the testimony of one witness he cannot be put to death. ⁷ The hands of the witnesses shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hands of all the people. So you shall purge the evil from among you.

Courts of Law

⁸ If there arises a matter too difficult for you in judgment, between one kind of bloodshed and another, between one kind of lawsuit and another, and between one kind of assault and another, matters of controversy within your gates, then you must arise and go up to the place where the Lord your God shall choose. ⁹ You must go to the Levitical priests or to the judge in office those days, and inquire, and they will show you the verdict of judgment. ¹⁰ You shall do according to the verdict which they declare to you from the place where the Lord will choose to show you, and you must be careful to do all that they instruct you to do. ¹¹ You must do according to the terms of the law which they instruct you and according to the verdict which they tell you. You must not deviate from the sentence which they show you, to the right or to the left. ¹² The man who acts presumptuously and does not listen to the priest who stands to minister before the Lord your God, or to the judge—that man must die, and you must purge the evil from Israel. ¹³ Then all the people will hear, and fear, and not act presumptuously again.

Appointing a King

¹⁴ When you have come into the land which the Lord your God gives you and possess it and dwell there and then say, “I will set a king over me just like all the nations that are around me,” ¹⁵ you must set a king over you whom the Lord your God will choose. You must select a king over you who is from among your brothers. You may not select a foreigner over you who is not your countryman. ¹⁶ What is more, he shall not accumulate horses for himself or cause the people to return to Egypt in order that he accumulate horses, for as the Lord has said to you, “You must not go back that way ever again.” ¹⁷ He shall not acquire many wives for himself, lest his heart turn away; nor shall he acquire for himself excess silver and gold.

¹⁸ It must be, when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write a copy of this law for himself on a scroll before the priests, the Levites. ¹⁹ It must be with him, and he must read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, and carefully observe all the words of this law and these statutes, and do them, ²⁰ that his heart will not be lifted up above his brothers and so that he may not turn aside from the commandment, to the right or to the left, to the end, so that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he and his children, in the midst of Israel.

Provision for Priests and Levites

18 The Levitical priests and all the tribe of Levi will not have any portion or inheritance with Israel. They must eat the offerings of the Lord made by fire and His portion. ² They will have no inheritance among their brothers. The Lord is their inheritance, just as He has said to them.

³ This shall be the priest’s due from the people, from them that offer a sacrifice, whether it be an ox or sheep: they shall give to the priest the shoulder, the two cheeks, and the stomach. ⁴ You must give him the first fruit of your grain, of your wine, and of your oil, and the first of the fleece of your sheep also. ⁵ For the Lord your God has chosen him out of all your tribes to stand to minister in the name of the Lord, him and his sons forever.

⁶ If a Levite comes from any of your gates out of all Israel, where he lives, and comes with all the desire of his mind to the place where the Lord shall choose, ⁷ then he shall minister in the name of the Lord his God, as all his brothers the Levites do, who stand there before the Lord. ⁸ They must have the same portions to eat, besides any profits he may receive from the sale of his father’s inheritance.

A Call to Holiness

⁹ When you enter into the land which the Lord your God gives you, you must not learn to practice the abominations of those nations. ¹⁰ There must not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, or who uses divination, or uses witchcraft, or an interpreter of omens, or a sorcerer, ¹¹ or one who casts spells, or a spiritualist, or an occultist, or a necromancer. ¹² For all that do these things are an abomination to the Lord, and because of these abominations the Lord your God will drive them out from before you. ¹³ You must be blameless before the Lord your God.

The Prophet

¹⁴ For these nations, which you shall possess, listened to soothsayers and to diviners, but as for you, the Lord your God has not permitted you to do so. ¹⁵ The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet from the midst of you, of your brothers, like me. You must listen to him. ¹⁶ This is according to all that you desired of the Lord your God in Horeb on the day of the assembly, saying, “Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God, nor let me see this great fire anymore, so that I do not die.”

¹⁷ The Lord said to me, “They have done well in what they have said. ¹⁸ I will raise up a prophet from among their brothers, like you, and will put My words in his mouth, and he will speak to them all that I command him. ¹⁹ It will be that whoever will not listen to My words which he will speak in My name, I will require it of him. ²⁰ But the prophet, who presumes to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or who shall speak in the name of other gods—that prophet shall die.”

²¹ And you may say in your heart, “How can we know the word which the Lord has not spoken?” ²² When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing does not occur or come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You shall not be afraid of him.

Cities of Refuge^(A)

19 When the Lord your God has cut 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 you shall set apart three cities for yourselves in the midst of your land, which the Lord your God is giving you to possess. ³ You shall prepare a roadway for yourself, and divide the territory of your land into three parts, which the Lord your God is giving you to inherit, so that every manslayer may flee there.

⁴ This is the word concerning the manslayer who will flee there, so that he may live: Whoever kills his neighbor unintentionally, whom he did not hate previously, ⁵ like when a man goes into the forest with his neighbor to cut wood, and his hand raises the axe to cut down the tree, and the axe head slips from the handle and lands on his neighbor causing him to die, then he may flee to one of those cities, and live. ⁶ Otherwise the avenger of blood might, while he is angry, pursue the manslayer and overtake him (because the way is long) and kill him, even though he was not worthy of death (since he did not hate him previously). ⁷ Therefore, I command you, saying, “You shall set apart three cities for yourselves.”

⁸ If the Lord your God enlarges your borders as He promised your fathers, and gives you all the land which He promised to give to your fathers, ⁹ and if you will carefully keep all these commandments, which I command you today, to love the Lord your God, and to always walk in His ways, then you must add three cities more for yourself, besides these three. ¹⁰ Then innocent blood will not be shed in your land, which the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance, and blood guiltiness be on you.

¹¹ But if any man hates his neighbor, and lies in wait for him, and rises up against him, and mortally strikes him, causing him to die, and flees to one of these cities, ¹² then the elders of his city must send and fetch him from there, and deliver him to the hand of the avenger of blood, so that he may die. ¹³ Your eye must not pity him, but you must remove the guilt of innocent blood from Israel, so that it may go well with you.

¹⁴ You shall not remove your neighbor’s landmark, which they of old time have set in your inheritance, which you shall inherit in the land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess.

Witnesses

¹⁵ A single witness must not rise up against a man on account of any iniquity or any sin that he sins. At the testimony of two witnesses or at the testimony of three witnesses shall the matter be established.

¹⁶ If a false witness rises up against any man to testify against him to accuse him of doing wrong, ¹⁷ then both the men between whom the controversy is must stand before the Lord, before the priests and the judges, who are in office those days. ¹⁸ The judges will thoroughly investigate, and if the witness is a false witness and has testified falsely against his brother, ¹⁹ then you must do to him as he conspired to have done to his brother. In this way you must remove the evil from among you. ²⁰ Those who remain will hear and fear, and will never again commit any such evil among you. ²¹ You must not show pity. But life will be for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.

Rules of Warfare

20 When you go out to battle against your enemies, and see horses, and chariots, and a people that outnumber you, do not be afraid of them, for the Lord your God is with you, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. ² It will be, when you approach the battle, that the priest will approach and speak to the people, ³ and he shall say to them, “Hear, O Israel, you approach today to do battle against your enemies. Do not be fainthearted. Do not fear, and do not tremble or be terrified because of them. ⁴ For the Lord your God is He that goes with you, to fight for you against your enemies, to save you.”

⁵ The officers will speak to the people, saying, “What man is there who has built a new house and has not dedicated it? Let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle, and another man dedicate it. ⁶ What man is there who has planted a vineyard, and has not yet eaten of it? Let him also go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle, and another man eat of it. ⁷ What man is there who is engaged to a woman but has not married her? Let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle, and another man take her.” ⁸ The officers are to speak further to the people, and they shall say, “What man is there that is fearful and fainthearted? Let him go and return to his house, lest his brother’s heart faint as well as his heart.” ⁹ It will be, when the officers have made an end of speaking to the people, that they must make captains of the armies to lead the people.

¹⁰ When you come near to a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace to it. ¹¹ It shall be, if it gives you a reply of peace and opens to you, then it must be that all the people that are found within shall become slaves to you and they shall serve you. ¹² If it will not make peace with you but makes war against you, then you are to besiege it. ¹³ And when the Lord your God has delivered it into your hands, you are to slay every male there with the edge of the sword. ¹⁴ But the women, and the little ones, and the livestock, and all that is in the city, all the spoil within, you are to take to yourself, and you will eat the spoil of your enemies, which the Lord your God has given you. ¹⁵ Thus you are to do to all the cities which are far away, which are not the cities of these nearby nations.

¹⁶ But of the cities of these people, which the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance, you must not leave alive anything that breathes. ¹⁷ But you shall completely destroy them: namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, just as the Lord your God has commanded you, ¹⁸ so that they do not teach you to participate in all their abominations, which they have done to their gods, causing you to sin against the Lord your God.

¹⁹ When you lay siege to a city for a long time, in making war against it in order to take it, you shall not destroy the trees there by chopping them down with an axe, for you may eat from them, and you shall not cut them down. For the tree of the field is not a man in which to lay siege. ²⁰ However, you may destroy and cut down only the trees which you know are not fruit trees, so that you may build siege engines against the city that makes war with you until it falls.