Deuteronomy 17

1 “You are not to sacrifice to the Lord your God a calf or a sheep with a defect in it, or anything bad about it; for that is a detestable thing to the Lord your God. 2 And if there is found in one of your towns, which the Lord your God is giving you, a man or a woman who does what is evil before the Lord your God, breaking his covenant, 3 and they go and serve other gods and bow down to them — the sun, or the moon, or any of the host of heaven, which he did not command you to do — 4 and you are told of it, and you have looked into it carefully, and it turns out that the thing really happened, that this detestable thing has been done in Israel, 5 then you are to bring out that man, or that woman, and you are to stone them with stones, and they are to die. 6 He is to die on the testimony of two or three witnesses; a man who is put to death is not to be put to death on one witness. [a] 7 And the hand of the witnesses is to be on him first to put him to death, and the hand of the people last. So you are to burn the evil out from among you.

8 And if a case is too hard for you to judge — between blood and blood, between claim and claim, between injury and injury, between one contradiction and another — cases for judgment in your towns — then you are to get up and go up to the place the Lord your God chooses to have his name called there, 9 and you are to go to the priests the Levites, and to the judge who is in office in those days; and they are to look into the matter and report the judgment to you. 10 And you are to act according to what they report to you out of the place the Lord your God chooses to have his name called there, and be careful to do everything they lay down for you. 11 You are to act according to the law and the judgment they declare to you; you are not to turn aside to the right or to the left from any sentence they report to you. 12 And the man who acts in arrogance, refusing to listen to the priest who stands to serve in the name of the Lord your God, or to the judge in office in those days — that man is to die, and you are to burn the evil out of Israel. 13 And all the people will hear and be afraid, and will not act without reverence again.

14 And when you come into the land the Lord your God is giving you, and take it and live in it, and you say, ‘I will set a ruler over me, like all the other nations around me,’ 15 then you are to set over yourself the ruler the Lord your God chooses. You are to set a ruler over yourself from among your brothers; you are not permitted to set a foreigner over yourself, because he is not your brother. 16 And he is not to build up horses for himself, and he is on no account to take the people back to Egypt to build up horses — for the Lord said, You are never to go back that way again. [b] 17 And he is not to build up wives for himself, or his heart will turn away; and he is not to build up a great deal of silver and gold for himself. 18 And when he is settled in his rule, he is to write out for himself this second law in a book, from the copy kept by the priests the Levites; [c] 19 and it is to stay with him, and he is to read in it all the days of his life, so that he may learn to fear the Lord your God and to keep all these commands and to observe these rules; 20 so that his heart may not be lifted up above his brothers, and he may not turn aside from the commands to the right or to the left — so that he and his sons may rule a long time in his kingdom among the children of Israel.”