Category: Deuteronomy

[16:18] “You shall appoint judges and officers in all your towns that the Lord your God is giving you, according to your tribes, and they shall judge the people with righteous judgment.

[16:19] You shall not pervert justice. You shall not show partiality, and you shall not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and subverts the cause of the righteous.

[16:20] Justice, and only justice, you shall follow, that you may live and inherit the land that the Lord your God is giving you.

[17:8] “If any case arises requiring decision between one kind of homicide and another, one kind of legal right and another, or one kind of assault and another, any case within your towns that is too difficult for you, then you shall arise and go up to the place that the Lord your God will choose.

[17:9] And you shall come to the Levitical priests and to the judge who is in office in those days, and you shall consult them, and they shall declare to you the decision.

[17:10] Then you shall do according to what they declare to you from that place that the Lord will choose. And you shall be careful to do according to all that they direct you.

[17:11] According to the instructions that they give you, and according to the decision which they pronounce to you, you shall do. You shall not turn aside from the verdict that they declare to you, either to the right hand or to the left.

[17:12] The man who acts presumptuously by not obeying the priest who stands to minister there before the Lord your God, or the judge, that man shall die. So you shall purge the evil from Israel.

[17:13] And all the people shall hear and fear and not act presumptuously again.

[17:14] “When you come to the land that the Lord your God is giving you, and you possess it and dwell in it and then say, ‘I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are around me,’

[17:15] you may indeed set a king over you whom the Lord your God will choose. One from among your brothers you shall set as king over you. You may not put a foreigner over you, who is not your brother.

[17:16] Only he must not acquire many horses for himself or cause the people to return to Egypt in order to acquire many horses, since the Lord has said to you, ‘You shall never return that way again.’

[17:17] And he shall not acquire many wives for himself, lest his heart turn away, nor shall he acquire for himself excessive silver and gold.

[17:18] “And when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself in a book a copy of this law, approved by the Levitical priests.

[17:19] And it shall be with him, and he shall read in it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God by keeping all the words of this law and these statutes, and doing them,

[17:20] that his heart may not be lifted up above his brothers, and that he may not turn aside from the commandment, either to the right hand or to the left, so that he may continue long in his kingdom, he and his children, in Israel.

[18:1] “The Levitical priests, all the tribe of Levi, shall have no portion or inheritance with Israel. They shall eat the Lord’s food offerings as their inheritance.

[18:2] They shall have no inheritance among their brothers; the Lord is their inheritance, as he promised them.

[18:3] And this shall be the priests’ due from the people, from those offering a sacrifice, whether an ox or a sheep: they shall give to the priest the shoulder and the two cheeks and the stomach.

[18:4] The firstfruits of your grain, of your wine and of your oil, and the first fleece of your sheep, you shall give him.

[18:5] For the Lord your God has chosen him out of all your tribes to stand and minister in the name of the Lord, him and his sons for all time.

[18:6] “And if a Levite comes from any of your towns out of all Israel, where he lives—and he may come when he desires —to the place that the Lord will choose,

[18:7] and ministers in the name of the Lord his God, like all his fellow Levites who stand to minister there before the Lord,

[18:8] then he may have equal portions to eat, besides what he receives from the sale of his patrimony.

[18:9] “When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations.

[18:10] There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer

[18:11] or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead,

[18:12] for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord. And because of these abominations the Lord your God is driving them out before you.

[18:13] You shall be blameless before the Lord your God,

[18:14] for 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.

[18:15] “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—

[18:16] just as you desired of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, ‘Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God or see this great fire any more, lest I die.’

[18:17] And the Lord said to me, ‘They are right in what they have spoken.

[18:18] I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him.

[18:19] And whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him.

[18:20] But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name that I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die.’

[18:21] And if you say in your heart, ‘How may we know the word that the Lord has not spoken?’—

[18:22] 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; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him.

[19:1] “When 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,

[19:2] you shall set apart three cities for yourselves in the land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess.

[19:3] You shall measure the distances 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.

[19:4] “This is the provision for the manslayer, who by fleeing there may save his life. If anyone kills his neighbor unintentionally without having hated him in the past—

[19:5] as 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,

[19:6] lest 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.

[19:7] Therefore I command you, You shall set apart three cities.

[19:8] And if the Lord your God enlarges your territory, as he has sworn to your fathers, and gives you all the land that he promised to give to your fathers—

[19:9] provided 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—then you shall add three other cities to these three,

[19:10] lest 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.

[19:11] “But if anyone hates his neighbor and lies in wait for him and attacks him and strikes him fatally so that he dies, and he flees into one of these cities,

[19:12] then 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.

[19:13] Your eye shall not pity him, but you shall purge the guilt of innocent blood from Israel, so that it may be well with you.

[19:15] “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. Only on the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses shall a charge be established.

[19:16] If a malicious witness arises to accuse a person of wrongdoing,

[19:17] then both parties to the dispute shall appear before the Lord, before the priests and the judges who are in office in those days.

[19:18] The judges shall inquire diligently, and if the witness is a false witness and has accused his brother falsely,

[19:19] then you shall do to him as he had meant to do to his brother. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.

[19:20] And the rest shall hear and fear, and shall never again commit any such evil among you.

[19:21] Your eye shall not pity. It shall be life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.