Deuteronomy 16: 21 - 1921
| 21You shall not plant for yourselves an Asherah of any kind of tree beside the LORD your God’s altar, which you shall make for yourselves. 22Neither shall you set yourself up a sacred stone which the LORD your God hates. |
| 1You shall not sacrifice to the LORD your God an ox or a sheep in which is a defect or anything evil; for that is an abomination to the LORD your God. |
| 2If there is found amongst you, within any of your gates which the LORD your God gives you, a man or woman who does that which is evil in the LORD your God’s sight in transgressing his covenant, 3and 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, 4and 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, 5then 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. 6At 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. 7The 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. |
| 8If 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 chooses. 9You 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. 10You 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. 11According 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. 12The man who does presumptuously in not listening to the priest who stands to minister there before the LORD your God, or to the judge, even that man shall die. You shall put away the evil from Israel. 13All the people shall hear and fear, and do no more presumptuously. |
| 14When you have come to the land which the LORD your God 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,” 15you shall surely set him whom the LORD your God 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. 16Only 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.” 17He shall not multiply wives to himself, that his heart not turn away. He shall not greatly multiply to himself silver and gold. |
| 18It 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. 19It 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, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes, to do them; 20that 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. |
| 1The priests and the Levites—all the tribe of Levi—shall have no portion nor inheritance with Israel. They shall eat the offerings of the LORD made by fire and his portion. 2They shall have no inheritance amongst their brothers. The LORD is their inheritance, as he has spoken to them. 3This shall be the priests’ due from the people, from those who offer a sacrifice, whether it be ox or sheep, that they shall give to the priest: the shoulder, the two cheeks, and the inner parts. 4You shall give him the first fruits of your grain, of your new wine, and of your oil, and the first of the fleece of your sheep. 5For the LORD your God has chosen him out of all your tribes to stand to minister in the LORD’s name, him and his sons forever. |
| 6If a Levite comes from any of your gates out of all Israel where he lives, and comes with all the desire of his soul to the place which the LORD shall choose, 7then he shall minister in the name of the LORD his God, as all his brothers the Levites do, who stand there before the LORD. 8They shall have like portions to eat, in addition to that which comes from the sale of his family possessions. |
| 9When you have come into the land which the LORD your God gives you, you shall not learn to imitate the abominations of those nations. 10There shall not be found with you anyone who makes his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, one who uses divination, one who tells fortunes, or an enchanter, or a sorcerer, 11or a charmer, or someone who consults with a familiar spirit, or a wizard, or a necromancer. 12For whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD. Because of these abominations, the LORD your God drives them out from before you. 13You shall be blameless with the LORD your God. 14For these nations that you shall dispossess listen to those who practise sorcery and to diviners; but as for you, the LORD your God has not allowed you so to do. 15The LORD your God will raise up to you a prophet from amongst you, of your brothers, like me. You shall listen to him. 16This is according to all that you desired of the LORD your God in Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, “Let me not hear again the LORD my God’s voice, neither let me see this great fire any more, that I not die.” |
| 17The LORD said to me, “They have well said that which they have spoken. 18I will raise them up a prophet from amongst their brothers, like you. I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I shall command him. 19It shall happen, that whoever will not listen to my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him. 20But the prophet who speaks a word presumptuously in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die.” |
| 21You may say in your heart, “How shall we know the word which the LORD has not spoken?” 22When a prophet speaks in the LORD’s name, if the thing doesn’t follow, nor happen, that is the thing which the LORD has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You shall not be afraid of him. |
| 1When the LORD your God cuts off the nations whose land the LORD your God gives you, and you succeed them and dwell in their cities and in their houses, 2you shall set apart three cities for yourselves in the middle of your land, which the LORD your God gives you to possess. 3You shall prepare the way, and divide the borders of your land which the LORD your God causes you to inherit into three parts, that every man slayer may flee there. 4This is the case of the man slayer who shall flee there and live: Whoever kills his neighbour unintentionally, and didn’t hate him in time past— 5as when a man goes into the forest with his neighbour to chop wood and his hand swings the axe to cut down the tree, and the head slips from the handle and hits his neighbour so that he dies—he shall flee to one of these cities and live. 6Otherwise, the avenger of blood might pursue the man slayer while hot anger is in his heart and overtake him, because the way is long, and strike him mortally, even though he was not worthy of death, because he didn’t hate him in time past. 7Therefore I command you to set apart three cities for yourselves. 8If the LORD your God enlarges your border, as he has sworn to your fathers, and gives you all the land which he promised to give to your fathers; 9and if you keep all this commandment to do it, which I command you today, to love the LORD your God, and to walk ever in his ways, then you shall add three cities more for yourselves, in addition to these three. 10This is so that innocent blood will not be shed in the middle of your land which the LORD your God gives you for an inheritance, leaving blood guilt on you. 11But if any man hates his neighbour, lies in wait for him, rises up against him, strikes him mortally so that he dies, and he flees into one of these cities; 12then the elders of his city shall send and bring him there, and deliver him into the hand of the avenger of blood, that he may die. 13Your eye shall not pity him, but you shall purge the innocent blood from Israel that it may go well with you. |
| 14You shall not remove your neighbour’s landmark, which they of old time have set, in your inheritance which you shall inherit, in the land that the LORD your God gives you to possess. |
| 15One witness shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity, or for any sin that he sins. At the mouth of two witnesses, or at the mouth of three witnesses, shall a matter be established. 16If an unrighteous witness rises up against any man to testify against him of wrongdoing, 17then both the men, between whom the controversy is, shall stand before the LORD, before the priests and the judges who shall be in those days; 18and the judges shall make diligent inquisition; and behold, if the witness is a false witness, and has testified falsely against his brother, 19then you shall do to him as he had thought to do to his brother. So you shall remove the evil from amongst you. 20Those who remain shall hear, and fear, and will never again commit any such evil amongst you. 21Your eyes shall not pity: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot. |
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