Deuteronomy 17

English NASU 1989 - New American Standard Update - Only for Website

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1"You shall not sacrifice to the LORD, your God, from the herd or from the flock an animal with any serious defect; that would be an abomination to the LORD, your God.

2"If there is found among you, in any one of the communities which the LORD, your God, gives you, a man or a woman who does evil in the sight of the LORD, your God, and transgresses his covenant,

3by serving other gods, or by worshiping the sun or the moon or any of the host of the sky, against my command;

4and if, on being informed of it, you find by careful investigation that it is true and an established fact that this abomination has been committed in Israel:

5you shall bring the man (or woman) who has done the evil deed out to your city gates and stone him to death.

6The testimony of two or three witnesses is required for putting a person to death; no one shall be put to death on the testimony of only one witness.

7At the execution, the witnesses are to be the first to raise their hands against him; afterward all the people are to join in. Thus shall you purge the evil from your midst.

8"If in your own community there is a case at issue which proves too complicated for you to decide, in a matter of bloodshed or of civil rights or of personal injury, you shall then go up to the place which the LORD, your God, chooses,

9to the levitical priests or to the judge who is in office at that time. They shall study the case and then hand down to you their decision.

10According to this decision that they give you in the place which the LORD chooses, you shall act, being careful to do exactly as they direct.

11You shall carry out the directions they give you and the verdict they pronounce for you, without turning aside to the right or to the left from the decision they hand down to you.

12Any man who has the insolence to refuse to listen to the priest who officiates there in the ministry of the LORD, your God, or to the judge, shall die. Thus shall you purge the evil from your midst.

13And all the people, on hearing of it, shall fear, and never again be so insolent.

14"When you have come into the land which the LORD, your God, is giving you, and have occupied it and settled in it, should you then decide to have a king over you like all the surrounding nations,

15you shall set that man over you as your king whom the LORD, your God, chooses. He whom you set over you as king must be your kinsman; a foreigner, who is no kin of yours, you may not set over you.

16But he shall not have a great number of horses; nor shall he make his people go back again to Egypt to acquire them, against the LORD'S warning that you must never go back that way again.

17Neither shall he have a great number of wives, lest his heart be estranged, nor shall he accumulate a vast amount of silver and gold.

18When he is enthroned in his kingdom, he shall have a copy of this law made from the scroll that is in the custody of the levitical priests.

19He shall keep it with him and read it all the days of his life that he may learn to fear the LORD, his God, and to heed and fulfill all the words of this law and these statutes.

20Let him not become estranged from his countrymen through pride, nor turn aside to the right or to the left from these commandments. Then he and his descendants will enjoy a long reign in Israel.

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