Deuteronomy 17

¹ You shall not sacrifice to Yahweh your Elohim a bull or a flockling in which there is a blemish, any bad thing, for it is an abhorrence to Yahweh your Elohim. ² In case there should be found among you, within one of your gates which Yahweh your Elohim is giving to you, a man or a woman who does evil in the eyes of Yahweh your Elohim so as to trespass against His covenant, ³ and he goes and serves other elohim and bows himself down to them or to the sun or to the moon or to any of the host of the heavens, something that I have instructed not to do, ⁴ and it has been told to you and you have heard it, then you will inquire diligently. And behold, if the truth of the matter is established that this abhorrence was done in Israel, ⁵ then you must bring forth that man or that woman who did this evil thing to your gates, the man or the woman, and you will stone them with stones so that they die. ⁶ At the mouth of two witnesses or three witnesses, the one about to die shall be put to death. He shall not be put to death at the mouth of one witness. ⁷ The hands of the witnesses shall come to be the first against him to put him to death and then the hands of all the people afterward. Thus you will eradicate the evil from among you. ⁸ In case a matter for judgment should be too difficult for you, between blood and blood, between adjudication and adjudication and between assault and assault, any matters of contentions in your gates, then you will arise and ascend to the place which Yahweh your Elohim shall choose. ⁹ And you will come to the priests, the Levites, and to the judge who shall come to be in those days; they will inquire and tell you the word of judgment. ¹⁰ Then you must act in accordance with the word that they shall tell you from that place that Yahweh your Elohim shall choose. You must observe to act according to all that they shall direct you. ¹¹ In accordance with the law by which they shall direct you and according to the judgment that they shall deliver to you, you shall act. You shall not withdraw from the word that they shall tell you, neither to the right nor left. ¹² Yet the man who acts with arrogance by not hearkening at all to the priest (who is standing to minister in the name of Yahweh your Elohim) or to the judge, that man must die. Thus you will eradicate the evil from Israel, ¹³ and all the people shall hear and fear, and not act arrogantly again. ¹⁴ When you come to the land that Yahweh your Elohim is giving to you, and you tenant it and dwell in it, and you say: Let me set a king over me like all the nations who are around me, ¹⁵ then you shall set, yea set over you a king whom Yahweh your Elohim shall choose. From among your brothers shall you set a king over you. You cannot put over you a foreign man who is not of your brothers. ¹⁶ But he shall neither increase horses for himself nor cause his people to return to Egypt in order to get many more horses, for Yahweh, He has said to you: You should not again return in this way further. ¹⁷ He shall neither increase wives for himself, that his heart may not withdraw, nor increase silver and gold for himself to excess. ¹⁸ It will come to be when he is seated on the throne of his kingdom, that he will write for himself a duplicate of this law on a scroll from the one before the priests, the Levites. ¹⁹ And it will be with him, and he will read in it all the days of his life that he may learn: to fear Yahweh your Elohim, to observe all the words of this law and these statutes to obey them, ²⁰ by no means to exalt his heart above his brothers and by no means to withdraw from the instruction, neither to the right nor left, so that he may prolong his days on the throne of his kingdom, he and his sons among Israel.