The Fifth Book of Moses: Deuteronomy

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- Kapitel 17 -

Do not sacrifice to Yahweh our God any cattle or sheep or goats that have any defects, because Yahweh detests that kind of gift.

Purge the Idolater

When you are living in any of the towns in the land that Yahweh our God is giving to you, suppose some man or woman sins by disobeying the covenant that Yahweh has made with you.

Suppose that person has worshiped and bowed down to other gods, or the sun, or the moon, or the stars.

If someone tells you that some person has been doing that, you must investigate it thoroughly to see whether this detestable thing has happened in Israel.

If it has happened, then you must take outside the town the man or woman who has done it. Then you must kill that person by throwing stones at him or her.

But you are allowed to execute such people only if at least two witnesses testify that they saw them doing that. They must not be executed if there is only one witness.

The witnesses should throw stones at the guilty person. Then the other people should throw stones until person dies. By doing that, you will get rid of this evil practice from among you.

Courts of Law

Sometimes it will be very difficult for a judge to decide what really happened. He might be trying to decide whether, when someone injured or killed another person, that person did it accidentally or deliberately. Or he might be trying to decide if some person is taking another person to court unfairly. If in any town it is very difficult to know what really happened, and if the judge cannot decide it, you should go to the place that Yahweh our God has chosen for you to worship him.

There you should present the case to the descendants of Levi who are priests, and to the judge who is serving at that time, and they should decide what should be done.

After they make their decision, you must do what they tell you to do.

Accept what they have decided, and do what they say that you should do. Do not try to change in any way what they have decided.

You must execute anyone who proudly disobeys the judge or the priest who stands there in the presence of Yahweh and decides what should be done. By doing that, you will get rid of this evil practice from among you.

Then after that person is executed, all the people will hear about it, and they will be afraid, and none of them will act that way anymore.

Guidelines for a King

(1 Samuel 8:1–9)

I know that after you have occupied the land that Yahweh our God is giving to you, and you are living there, you will say, ‘We should have a king to rule over us, like the kings that other nations around us have.’

Yahweh our God will permit you to have a king, but be sure that you appoint someone whom he has chosen. That man must be an Israelite; you must not appoint someone who is a foreigner to be your king.

After he becomes the king, he should not acquire a large number of horses for himself. He should not send people to Egypt to buy horses for him, because Yahweh said to you, ‘Never return to Egypt for anything!’

And he must not have a lot of wives, because if he did that, they would turn him away from worshiping only Yahweh. And he must not acquire a lot of silver and gold.

When he becomes your king, he must appoint someone to copy these laws. He must copy them from the scroll that is kept by the priests descended from Levi.

He must keep this new scroll near him and read from it every day of his life, in order that he may learn to have an awesome respect for Yahweh, and to faithfully obey all the rules and regulations that are written in these laws.

If he does that, he will not think that he is more important than his fellow Israelites, and he will completely obey Yahweh’s commands. As a result, he and his descendants will rule as kings in Israel for many years.”

You 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.

Purge the Idolater

If there is found among 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,

and has gone and served other gods and worshiped them, or the sun, or the moon, or any of the stars of the sky, which I have not commanded,

and you are told, and you have heard of it, then you shall inquire diligently. Behold, if it is true, and the thing certain, that such abomination is done in Israel,

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.

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.

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 among you.

Courts of Law

If there arises a matter too hard for you in judgment, 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.

You shall come to the priests who are Levites and to the judge who shall be in those days. You shall inquire, and they shall give you the verdict.

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.

According to the decisions of the law which they shall teach you, and according to the judgment 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.

The 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.

All the people shall hear and fear, and do no more presumptuously.

Guidelines for a King

(1 Samuel 8:1–9)

When 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,”

you shall surely set him whom the LORD your God chooses as king over yourselves. You shall set as king over you one from among your brothers. You may not put a foreigner over you, who is not your brother.

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.”

He shall not multiply wives to himself, that his heart not turn away. He shall not greatly multiply to himself silver and gold.

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.

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, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes, to do them;

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.