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Deuteronomy 17 (CEV)

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¹ If an ox or a sheep has something wrong with it, don't offer it as a sacrifice to the LORD your God--he will be disgusted! ² The LORD your God is giving you towns to live in. But later, a man or a woman in your town may start worshiping other gods, or even the sun, moon, or stars. I have warned you not to worship other gods, because whoever worships them is disobeying the LORD ³ (SEE 17:2) ⁴ So when you hear that someone in your town is committing this disgusting sin, you must carefully find out if that person really is guilty. ⁵ But you will need two or three witnesses--one witness isn't enough to prove a person guilty. Get rid of those who are guilty of such evil. Take them outside your town gates and have everyone stone them to death. But the witnesses must be the first to thr ⁶ (SEE 17:5) ⁷ (SEE 17:5) ⁸ It may be difficult to find out the truth in some legal cases in your town. You may not be able to decide if someone was killed accidentally or murdered. Or you may not be able to tell whether an injury or some property damage was done by accident or on ⁹ (SEE 17:8) ¹⁰ (SEE 17:8) ¹¹ (SEE 17:8) ¹² (SEE 17:8) ¹³ When other Israelites hear about it, they will be afraid and obey the decisions of the court. ¹⁴ People of Israel, after you capture the land the LORD your God is giving you, and after you settle on it, you will say, "We want a king, just like the nations around us." ¹⁵ Go ahead and appoint a king, but make sure that he is an Israelite and that he is the one the LORD has chosen. ¹⁶ The king should not have many horses, especially those from Egypt. The LORD has said never to go back there again. ¹⁷ And the king must not have a lot of wives--they might tempt him to be unfaithful to the LORD. Finally, the king must not try to get huge amounts of silver and gold. ¹⁸ The official copy of God's laws will be kept by the priests of the Levi tribe. So, as soon as anyone becomes king, he must go to the priests and write out a copy of these laws while they watch. ¹⁹ Each day the king must read and obey these laws, so that he will learn to worship the LORD with fear and trembling ²⁰ and not think that he's better than everyone else. If the king completely obeys the LORD's commands, he and his descendants will rule Israel for many years.