Victims must be without blemish. Idolaters are to be slain. Controversies are to be decided by the high priest and council, whose sentence must be obeyed under pain of death. The duty of a king, who is to receive the law of God at the priest’s hands.

¹ “You shall not immolate to the Lord your God a sheep or an ox, in which there is a blemish or any defect at all; for this is an abomination to the Lord your God.

² When there will have been found among you, within one of your gates which the Lord your God will give to you, a man or a woman who is doing evil in the sight of the Lord your God, and who is transgressing his covenant,

³ so as to go and serve foreign gods and adore them, such as the sun and the moon, or any of the host of heaven, which I have not instructed,¹

1. 17:3The host of heaven: That is, the stars.(Challoner)

⁴ and when this will have been reported to you, and, upon hearing it, if you have inquired diligently and have found it to be true, that the abomination is being done in Israel:

⁵ you shall lead forward the man or the woman who has perpetrated this most wicked thing to the gates of your city, and they shall be stoned to death.

⁶ By the mouth of two or three witnesses, he who is to be put to death shall perish. Let no one be killed with only one person speaking testimony against him.

⁷ First, the hands of the witnesses shall be upon him who will be put to death, and lastly, the hands of the remainder of the people shall be sent forth. So may you take away the evil from your midst.

⁸ If you have perceived that there is among you a difficult and doubtful matter of judgment, between blood and blood, cause and cause, leprosy and leprosy, and if you will have seen that the words of the judges within your gates vary: rise up and ascend to the place which the Lord your God will choose.¹

1. 17:8If you perceive, etc: Here we see what authority God was pleased to give to the church guides of the Old Testament, in deciding, without appeal, all controversies relating to the law; promising that they should not err therein; and surely he has not done less for the church guides of the New Testament.(Challoner)

⁹ And you shall approach the priests of the Levitical stock, and the judge, who shall be among them at that time, and you shall inquire of them, and they will reveal to you the truth of the judgment.

¹⁰ And you shall accept whatever they will say, those who preside in the place which the Lord will choose, and whatever they will teach you,

¹¹ in accord with his law, and you shall follow their sentence. Neither shall you turn aside to the right or to the left.

¹² But whoever will be arrogant, unwilling to obey the order of the priest who ministers at that time to the Lord your God, and the decree of the judge, that man shall die. And so shall you take away the evil from Israel.

¹³ And when the people hear about this, they shall be afraid, so that no one, from that time on, will swell with pride.

¹⁴ When you will have entered into the land which the Lord your God will give to you, and you possess it, and you live in it, and you say, ‘I will appoint a king over me, just as all the surrounding nations have done,’

¹⁵ you shall appoint him whom the Lord your God will choose from among the number of your brothers. You cannot make a man of another people king, one who is not your brother.

¹⁶ And when he will have been appointed king, he shall not multiply horses for himself, nor lead the people back into Egypt, having been exalted by the number of his horsemen, especially since the Lord has instructed you never to return along the same way.

¹⁷ He shall not have many wives, who might allure his mind, and he shall not have immense weights of silver and gold.

¹⁸ Then, after he has been seated upon the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself the Deuteronomy of this law in a volume, using a copy from the priests of the Levitical tribe.

¹⁹ And he shall have it with him, and he shall read it all the days of his life, so that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, and to keep his words and ceremonies, which are instructed in the law.

²⁰ And so may his heart not become exalted with arrogance over his brothers, nor turn aside to the right or to the left, so that he and his sons may reign for a long time over Israel.”