Deuteronomy 17:1-13 ▼

1 YOU shall not sacrifice to the LORD your God an ox or a lamb wherein is blemish, or anything impious; for that is an abomination in the sight of the LORD your God.

2 If there is found among you, within any of your towns which the LORD your God gives you, a man or a woman who shall do evil in the sight of the LORD your God and transgress his covenant,

3 And shall go and serve other gods and worship them, either the sun, or the moon, or any of the host of heaven, which I have not commanded;

4 And it is told you, and you shall hear of it, you shall inquire diligently, and if it is true that such an abomination has been committed in Israel;

5 Then you shall bring forth that man or that woman who has committed that wicked thing within your towns, whether he is a man or a woman; and you shall stone him with stones, till he die.

6 On the testimony of two witnesses or three witnesses shall he that is worthy of death be put to death; but on the testimony of one witness he shall not be put to death.

7 And the hand of the witnesses shall be the first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hands of all the people. So you shall destroy the evildoers from among you.

8 If there arise a matter which is too difficult for you to judge, between murder and murder, between lawsuit and lawsuit, and between a sore of leprosy and a sore of leprosy, any matters of controversy within your towns; then you shall arise and go to the place which the LORD your God shall choose for himself;

9 And you shall come to the priest, or the Levite, or to the judge who shall be in those days, and inquire; and they shall show you the sentence of judgment;

10 And you shall do according to the decision which they of that place shall show you, as the LORD has commanded; and you shall observe to do according to all that they teach you;

11 According to the sentence of the law which they shall declare to you, and according to the judgment which they shall tell you, you shall do; you shall not swerve from the sentence which they shall show you, neither to the right hand nor to the left.

12 And the man who will do presumptuously, and will not hearken to the priest who stands to minister there before the LORD your God, or to the judge, that man shall be put to death; you shall destroy the evildoers from Israel.

13 And all the people shall hear, and fear, and do no more presumptuously.