1 “You shall not sacrifice to Yahweh your God an ox or sheep that has a physical defectof anything seriously wrong,for that is a detestable thing to Yahweh your God.

2 If there is found in one of your townsthat Yahweh your God is giving to you a man or a woman that does evil in the eyes of Yahweh your God to transgress his covenant

3 and by going and serving other gods and so he bows down to them and to the sun or to the moon or to any of the host of heaven which I have forbidden,

4 and it is reported to you or you hear about it and you enquire about it thoroughly and, indeed,the trustworthiness of the deedhas been established, it has occurred,this detestable thing, in Israel,

5 then you shall bring out that man or that woman who hasdone this evil thing to your gates; that is, the man or the woman, and you shall stone them with stones to death.

6 On the evidence oftwo or three witnesses the person shall be put to death.The personshall not be put to death by the mouth of one witness.

7 The hand of the witnesses shall be first against the personto kill the person,and afterward the handsof all the people, and so you shall purge the evil from your midst.

8 “If a matter is too difficult for you,for example disputes between blood and blood,between legal claim and legal claimand between assault and assaultand between matters of discernment in your towns,then you shall get up and you shall go to the place that Yahweh your God will choose;

9 then you shall go to the priests and the Levites and to the judge who will be in office in those days, and you shall enquire, and they shall announce to you the verdict.

10 “And you shall carry out exactly the decisionthat they announced to you from that place that Yahweh will choose, and you shall diligently observeaccording to all that they instruct you.

11 And so according to the instruction of the lawthat they teach you and according to the decisions that they say to you, you shall do; you shall not turn from the word that they tell you to the right or to the left.

12 And the man who treats with contemptso as not to listen to the priest who is standing to minister on behalf of Yahweh your God or to the judge, that man shall die; so you shall purge the evil from Israel.

13 And all the people will hear and will be afraid, and they will not behave presumptuously again.

14 “When you have come to that land that Yahweh your God is giving to you and you have taken possession of it and you have settled in it, and you say, ‘I will set over me a king like all the nations that are around me,’

15 indeed, you may set a king over you whom Yahweh your God will choose, from the midst of your countrymenyou must set a king over you; you are not allowed to appoint over you a man, a foreigner, who is not your countryman.

16 Except, he may not make numerousfor himself horses, and he may not allow the people to to go to Egypt in order to increase horses,for Yahweh has said to you that you may never return.

17 And he must not acquire manywives for himself, so that his heart would turn aside; and he must not accumulate silver and gold for himself excessively.

18 “And thenwhen he is sittingon the throne of his kingdom, then he shall write for himself a copy of this law on a scroll beforethe Levitical priests.

19 And it shall be with him, and he shall read itall the days of his life, so that he may learn to revere Yahweh your God by diligently observingall the word of this law and these rules,

20 so as not to exalt his heart above his countrymenand not to turn aside from the commandment to the right or to the left, so that he may reign long over his kingdom,he and his children in the midst of Israel.”