Deuteronomy 17-18

Common English Bible

17 Don’t sacrifice to the Lord your God any oxen or sheep that have defects of any kind, because that is detestable to the Lord your God.

Capital punishment

² If someone, whether male or female, is found in your community—in one of the cities the Lord your God is giving you—who does evil in the Lord your God’s eyes, by breaking God’s covenant, ³ by following and serving other gods, and by bowing down to them, to the sun or the moon or any of the heavenly bodies that I haven’t permitted— ⁴ and you hear news about it, then you must look into this situation very carefully. And if it’s definitely true that this detestable thing was done in Israel, ⁵ then you must bring out the man or woman who has done this evil thing to the gates of the city. Stone that person until he or she is dead.

⁶ Capital punishment must be decided by two or three witnesses. No one may be executed on the basis of only one testimony. ⁷ In the execution, the hands of the witnesses must be against the guilty person from the start; the hand of all the people will be involved at the end. Remove^[a] such evil from your community!

Legal disputes

⁸ If some legal dispute in your cities is too difficult for you to decide—say, between different kinds of bloodshed, different kinds of legal ruling, or different kinds of injury—then take it to the location the Lord your God selects. ⁹ Go to the levitical priests and to the head judge in office at that time and look into things there. They will announce to you the correct ruling. ¹⁰ You must then act according to the ruling they announced to you from that location, the one the Lord selects. You must follow very carefully everything they instruct you to do. ¹¹ Act precisely according to the instruction they give you and the ruling they announce to you. Don’t deviate even a bit from the word they announce. ¹² And whoever acts rashly by not listening to the priest who is in office serving the Lord your God or to the head judge will die. Remove^[b] such evil from Israel! ¹³ All the people will hear about this and be afraid. They won’t act arrogantly anymore.

Law of the king

¹⁴ Once you have entered the land the Lord your God is giving you and you have taken possession of it and settled down in it, you might say: “Let’s appoint a king over us, as all our neighboring nations have done.” ¹⁵ You can indeed appoint over you a king that the Lord your God selects. You can appoint over you a king who is one of your fellow Israelites. You are not allowed to appoint over you a foreigner who is not one of your fellow Israelites. ¹⁶ That granted, the king must not acquire too many horses, and he must not return the people to Egypt in order to acquire more horses, because the Lord told you: “You will never go back by that road again.” ¹⁷ The king must not take numerous wives so that his heart doesn’t go astray. Nor can the king acquire too much silver and gold. ¹⁸ Instead, when he sits on his royal throne, he himself must write a copy of this Instruction on a scroll in the presence of the levitical priests. ¹⁹ That Instruction must remain with him, and he must read in it every day of his life so that he learns to revere the Lord his God by keeping all the words of this Instruction and these regulations, by doing them, ²⁰ by not being overbearing toward his fellow Israelites, and by not deviating even a bit from the commandment. If the king does all that, he will ensure lasting rule in Israel for himself and for his successors.

Priests and Levites

18 Neither the levitical priests nor any Levite tribe member will have a designated inheritance in Israel. They can eat the sacrifices offered to the Lord, which are the Lord’s portion,^{[c] 2} but they won’t share an inheritance with their fellow Israelites. The Lord alone is the Levites’ inheritance—just as God promised them.

³ Now this is what the priests may keep from the people’s sacrifices of oxen or sheep: They must give the priest the shoulder, the jaws, and the stomach. ⁴ You must also give the priest the first portions of your grain, wine, and oil, and the first of your sheep’s shearing ⁵ because the Lord your God selected Levi from all of your tribes to stand and minister in the Lord’s name—both him and his descendants for all time.

⁶ Now if a Levite leaves one of your cities or departs from any location in Israel where he’s been living and, because he wants to, comes to the location the Lord selects ⁷ and ministers in the Lord his God’s name, just like his relatives—the other Levites serving there in the Lord’s presence— ⁸ he is allowed to eat equal portions, despite the finances he has from his family.^[d]

Communicating with God

⁹ Once you enter the land that the Lord your God is giving you, don’t try to imitate the detestable things those nations do. ¹⁰ There must not be anyone among you who passes his son or daughter through fire; who practices divination, is a sign reader, fortune-teller, sorcerer, ¹¹ or spell caster; who converses with ghosts or spirits or communicates with the dead. ¹² All who do these things are detestable to the Lord! It is on account of these detestable practices that the Lord your God is driving these nations^[e] out before you.

¹³ Instead, you must be perfect before the Lord your God. ¹⁴ These nations you are displacing listened to sign readers and diviners, but the Lord your God doesn’t permit you to do the same! ¹⁵ The Lord your God will raise up a prophet like me from your community, from your fellow Israelites. He’s the one you must listen to. ¹⁶ That’s exactly what you requested from the Lord your God at Horeb, on the day of the assembly, when you said, “I can’t listen to the Lord my God’s voice anymore or look at this great fire any longer. I don’t want to die!”

¹⁷ The Lord said to me: What they’ve said is right. ¹⁸ I’ll raise up a prophet for them from among their fellow Israelites—one just like you. I’ll put my words in his mouth, and he will tell them everything I command him. ¹⁹ I myself will hold accountable anyone who doesn’t listen to my words, which that prophet will speak in my name. ²⁰ However, any prophet who arrogantly speaks a word in my name that I haven’t commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods—that prophet must die.

²¹ Now, you might be wondering, How will we know which word God hasn’t spoken? ²² Here’s the answer: The prophet who speaks in the Lord’s name and the thing doesn’t happen or come about—that’s the word the Lord hasn’t spoken. That prophet spoke arrogantly. Don’t be afraid of him.^[f]