World English Bible, British Edition
Deuteronomy • Chapter 17
1
You shall not sacrifice to the LORD your God (Elohim) an ox or a sheep in which is
a defect or anything evil; for that is an abomination to the LORD your God (Elohim).
2
If there is found amongst you, within any of your gates which
the LORD your God (Elohim) gives you, a man or woman who does that which is evil in the LORD your God (Elohim)’s sight in
transgressing his covenant,
3
and has gone and served other gods and worshipped them, or the sun, or
the moon, or any of the stars of the sky, which I have not commanded,
4
and you are told, and you have heard of it, then you shall enquire diligently.
Behold, if it is true, and the thing certain, that such abomination is done in Israel,
5
then you shall bring out that man or that woman who has done this evil
thing to your gates, even that same man or woman; and you shall stone them to death with stones.
6
At the mouth of two witnesses, or three witnesses, he who is to die shall
be put to death. At the mouth of one witness he shall not be put to death.
7
The hands of the witnesses shall be first on him to put him to death,
and afterward the hands of all the people. So you shall remove the evil from amongst you.
8
If there arises a matter too hard for you in judgement, between
blood and blood, between plea and plea, and between stroke and stroke, being matters of controversy within
your gates, then you shall arise, and go up to the place which the LORD your God (Elohim) chooses.
9
You shall come to the priests who are Levites and to the judge who shall
be in those days. You shall enquire, and they shall give you the verdict.
10
You shall do according to the decisions of the verdict which they shall
give you from that place which the LORD chooses. You shall observe to do according to all that they shall
teach you.
11
According to the decisions of the law which they shall teach you, and
according to the judgement which they shall tell you, you shall do. You shall not turn away from the sentence
which they announce to you, to the right hand, nor to the left.
12
The man who does presumptuously in not listening to the priest who
stands to minister there before the LORD your God (Elohim), or to the judge, even that man shall die. You shall
put away the evil from Israel.
13
All the people shall hear and fear, and do no more presumptuously.
14
When you have come to the land which the LORD your God (Elohim) gives
you, and possess it and dwell in it, and say, “I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are
around me,”
15
you shall surely set him whom the LORD your God (Elohim) chooses as king over
yourselves. You shall set as king over you one from amongst your brothers. You may not put a foreigner
over you, who is not your brother.
16
Only he shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people
to return to Egypt, to the end that he may multiply horses; because the LORD has said to you, “You shall
not go back that way again.”
17
He shall not multiply wives to himself, that his heart not turn away.
He shall not greatly multiply to himself silver and gold.
18
It shall be, when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, that
he shall write himself a copy of this law in a book, out of that which is before the Levitical priests.
19
It shall be with him, and he shall read from it all the days of his
life, that he may learn to fear the LORD his God (Elohim), to keep all the words of this law and these statutes,
to do them;
20
that his heart not be lifted up above his brothers, and that he not
turn away from the commandment to the right hand, or to the left, to the end that he may prolong his days
in his kingdom, he and his children, in the middle of Israel.