Use Only Good Animals for Sacrifices

17 “You must not sacrifice to the Lord your God an ox or sheep that has anything wrong with it. The Lord your God would hate that.

Punishment for Worshiping Idols

² “You might hear about an evil thing that happens in one of the cities that the Lord your God is giving you. You might hear that a man or woman in your group has sinned against the Lord your God. You might hear that they have broken his agreement or ³ that they have worshiped other gods or maybe the sun, the moon or the stars. I never told you to do that! ⁴ If you hear bad news like this, you must check it carefully. You must learn if it is true that this terrible thing has really happened in Israel. If you prove that it is true, ⁵ you must punish the person who did this evil thing. You must take that man or woman out to a public place near the city gates and kill them with stones. ⁶ But no one should be punished with death if only one witness says that person did that evil thing. But if two or three witnesses say it is true, the person must be killed. ⁷ The witnesses must throw the first stones to kill that person. Then the other people should throw stones to finish killing that person. In this way you will remove this evil from your group.

Difficult Court Decisions

⁸ “There might be some problems that are too hard for your courts to judge. It might be a murder case or an argument between two people. Or it might be a fight in which someone was hurt. When these cases are argued in your towns, your judges there might not be able to decide what is right. Then you must go to the special place that the Lord your God will choose. ⁹ You must go to the priests who are Levites and to the judge on duty at that time. They will decide what to do about that problem. ¹⁰ There at the Lord’s special place they will tell you their decision. You must do whatever they say. Be sure to do everything they tell you to do. ¹¹ You must accept their decision and follow their instructions exactly—don’t change anything!

¹² “You must punish anyone who refuses to obey the judge or the priest who is there at that time serving the Lord your God. That person must die. You must remove this evil person from Israel. ¹³ All the people will hear about this punishment and be afraid. Then they will not be stubborn anymore.

How to Choose a King

¹⁴ “You will enter the land that the Lord your God is giving you. You will take that land and live in it. Then you will say, ‘We will put a king over us, like all the nations around us.’ ¹⁵ When that happens, you must be sure to choose the king that the Lord your God chooses. The king over you must be one of your own people. You must not make a foreigner your king. ¹⁶ The king must not get more and more horses for himself. And he must not send people to Egypt to get more horses, because the Lord has told you, ‘You must never go back that way.’ ¹⁷ Also, the king must not have too many wives, because that will make him turn away from the Lord. And he must not make himself rich with silver and gold.

¹⁸ “When the king begins to rule, he must write a copy of the law for himself in a book. He must make that copy from the books that the priests from the tribe of Levi keep. ¹⁹ He must keep that book with him and read from it all his life, because he must learn to respect the Lord his God. He must learn to completely obey everything the law commands. ²⁰ Then the king will not think that he is better than any of his own people. He will not turn away from the law, but he will follow it exactly. Then he and his descendants will rule the kingdom of Israel a long time.

Supporting the Priests and Levites

18 “The tribe of Levi will not get any share of land in Israel. The priests come from that tribe and they will eat the special sacrifices that are offered as gifts to the Lord. That is the share for the people from the tribe of Levi. ² The tribe of Levi will not get any share of land like the other tribes. Their share is the Lord himself, as he said to them.

³ “When you kill one of your sheep or cattle for a sacrifice, you must give the priests these parts: the shoulder, both cheeks, and the stomach. ⁴ You must give the priests the first part of your harvest. You must give them the first part of your grain, your new wine, and your oil. You must give the Levites the first wool cut from your sheep. ⁵ This is because the Lord your God looked at all your tribes and chose Levi and his descendants to serve him as priests forever.

⁶ “Any Levite living in any town anywhere in Israel may leave his home and come to the Lord’s special place. He may do this anytime he wants. ⁷ And this Levite may serve in the name of the Lord his God, the same as all his brother Levites who are on duty before the Lord. ⁸ And that Levite will get an equal share with the other Levites, in addition to the share his family normally gets.^[a]

Israel Must Not Live Like Other Nations

⁹ “When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you, don’t learn to do the terrible things the people of the other nations there do. ¹⁰ Don’t sacrifice your sons or daughters in the fires on your altars. Don’t try to learn what will happen in the future by talking to a fortuneteller or by going to a magician, a witch, or a sorcerer. ¹¹ Don’t let anyone try to put magic spells on other people. Don’t let any of your people become a medium or a wizard. And no one should try to talk with someone who has died. ¹² The Lord hates anyone who does these things. And because these other nations do these terrible things, the Lord your God will force them out of the land as you enter it. ¹³ You must be faithful to the Lord your God, never doing anything he considers wrong.

The Lord’s Special Prophet

¹⁴ “You will force the other nations out of your land. They listen to people who use magic and try to tell the future. But the Lord your God will not let you do these things. ¹⁵ The Lord your God will send to you a prophet. This prophet will come from among your own people, and he will be like me. You must listen to him. ¹⁶ God will send you this prophet because that is what you asked him to do. When you were gathered together at Mount Horeb, you became frightened and said, ‘Don’t let us hear the voice of the Lord our God again! Don’t let us see that great fire or we will die!’

¹⁷ “The Lord said to me, ‘What they ask for is good. ¹⁸ I will send them a prophet like you. This prophet will be one of their own people. I will tell him what he must say, and he will tell the people everything I command. ¹⁹ This prophet will speak for me, and I will punish anyone who refuses to listen to my commands.’

How to Know False Prophets

²⁰ “But a prophet might say something that I did not tell him to say. And he might tell people that he is speaking for me. If this happens, that prophet must be killed. Also a prophet might come that speaks for other gods. That prophet must also be killed. ²¹ You might be thinking, ‘How can we know if something a prophet says is not from the Lord?’ ²² If a prophet says he is speaking for the Lord, but what he says does not happen, you will know that the Lord did not say it. You will know that this prophet was speaking his own ideas. You don’t need to be afraid of him.