Deuteronomy 17

17 ¹ You must not sacrifice to your Father an ox or a sheep that has any defect or serious flaw, for that is detestable to your Father.

Purging Idolatry from the Community

² If there is found among you, in any of the towns your Father is giving you, a man or woman who does what is evil in the eyes of your Father by breaking his covenant, ³ and has gone and served other gods and bowed down to them — to the sun or the moon or any of the host of heaven, which I have not commanded — ⁴ and it is reported to you and you hear of it, then you must investigate thoroughly. And if it is true and certain that this detestable thing has been done in Israel, ⁵ then you must bring out to the town gate the man or the woman who has done this evil thing — the man or the woman — and you must stone them to death. ⁶ On the testimony of two witnesses or three witnesses the condemned shall be put to death; he must not be put to death on the testimony of a single witness. ⁷ The hand of the witnesses must be the first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. So you will purge the evil from your midst.

The Father's Courts of Justice

⁸ If a case is too difficult for you to judge — between one kind of bloodshed and another, between one legal claim and another, between one assault and another, matters of dispute in your towns — then you must go up to the place that your Father will choose. ⁹ You must come to the levitical priests and to the judge who is in office in those days, and you must inquire; and they will declare to you the verdict. ¹⁰ Then you must act according to the word they declare to you from that place our Father will choose, and you must be careful to do all that they instruct you. ¹¹ According to the instruction they teach you and the judgment they pronounce to you, you must act; you must not turn aside from the word they declare to you, to the right or to the left. ¹² The man who acts arrogantly by not listening to the priest who stands to minister there before your Father, or to the judge, that man must die. So you will purge the evil from Israel. ¹³ And all the people will hear and be afraid, and act arrogantly no longer.

The Father's Guidelines for a King

¹⁴ When you come to the land that your Father is giving you, and you take possession of it and live in it, and you say, "I will set a king over me, like all the nations around me," ¹⁵ you may indeed set over you a king whom your Father will choose. You must set a man from among your brothers as king over you; you may not put over you a foreigner who is not your brother. ¹⁶ Only he must not acquire many horses for himself, or make the people return to Egypt to acquire more horses, since our Father has said to you, "You must never return that way again." ¹⁷ And he must not acquire many wives for himself, or his heart will turn away; nor must he pile up great amounts of silver and gold for himself.

¹⁸ And when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he must write for himself a copy of this law in a book, before the levitical priests. ¹⁹ And it must stay with him, and he must read from it all the days of his life, so that he may learn to fear his Father, keeping all the words of this law and these statutes by doing them, ²⁰ so that his heart may not grow proud above his brothers, and that he may not turn aside from the commandment to the right or to the left, so that he and his children may reign long in his kingdom in Israel.