17
📚You must not sacrifice to the LORD your God any bull or sheep which has a blemish or any defect; for that is an abomination to the LORD your God. Punishment for worshipping other gods, or the sun, moon or stars
2 📚If there is found among you, inside any of your gates which the LORD your God gives you, a man or woman who has done evil in the sight of the LORD your God, by breaking his covenant, 3 📚and has gone and served other gods and worshipped them, or the sun or moon or any of the starry host 📖 of heaven (I have commanded no such worship), 4 📚and it is told to you, or if you hear of it, and carefully investigate and see that it is true and certain that such abomination has been done in Israel, 5 📚then you must bring out to your gates that man or that woman who has done that wicked thing, and must stone that man or that woman with stones until they die. 6 📚The one who deserves death must be put to death by the testimony of two witnesses, or three witnesses, but he must not be put to death by the testimony of one witness. 7 📚The hands of the witnesses must first be on him to put him to death, and afterward the hands of all the people. So you shall put evil away from among you.
17:2-7 Once again God says that false worship whether of idols or of sun, moon, and stars is “an abomination” and worthy of death.⚜
Law courts
8 📚If any case arises too hard for you to judge, between bloodshed and bloodshed, between lawsuit and lawsuit, and between violence and violence, being controversial cases inside your gates, then you shall arise and go up to the place which the LORD your God chooses, 9 📚and you shall come to the priests the Levites, and to the judge that will be there in those days, and inquire; and they must pronounce the judgment to you. 10 📚And you must do according to the pronouncement which those of that place which the LORD chooses gives to you; and you must be careful to do according to all their instructions to you. 11 📚You must do according to the pronouncement of the law which they teach you, and according to the judgment which they tell you. You shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left from the sentence which they pronounce upon you.
17:8-11 Difficult cases were to be decided in Jerusalem before the high priest or a judge.⚜
12 📚And the man who acts presumptuously and will not listen to the priest who stands to serve there before the LORD your God, or to the judge, that man must die; and you must put away evil from Israel. 13 📚And all the people will hear and fear, and no longer act presumptuously.
Choosing a king
14 📚When you have come to the land which the LORD your God gives you, and possess it and live in it, and say, “I will set a king over me like all the nations that are around me”, 15 📚you must set as king over you the one whom the LORD your God chooses. You must set as king over you one of your brethren. You must not set a foreigner over you, who is not your brother.
16 📚And he must not multiply horses for himself, or cause the people to return to Egypt, so that he can multiply horses; for the LORD has said to you, “You are not to return that way again”. 17 📚And he must not multiply wives for himself, so that his heart does not turn away; and he must not greatly increase silver and gold for himself.
18 📚And it shall be, when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, that he must write for himself a copy of this law in a book from that which is with the priests the Levites; 19 📚and it is to be with him, and he must read it all the days of his life, so that he may learn to fear the LORD his God, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes, to do them, 20 📚so that his heart will not be lifted up above his brethren, and so that he does not turn aside from the commandments to the right hand, or to the left; then he will live a long time in his kingdom, he and his children, in Israel.
17:18-20 The Word of God is the only basis for a humble and just reign.⚜