Deuteronomy 16; Deuteronomy 17; Deuteronomy 18; Deuteronomy 19; Deuteronomy 20; Deuteronomy 21:1-9

1 Observe the month of Aviv, and keep the Pesach to the LORD your God; for in the month of Aviv the LORD your God brought you forth out of Mitzrayim by night.

2 You shall sacrifice the Pesach to the LORD your God, of the flock and the herd, in the place which the LORD shall choose, to cause his name to dwell there.

3 You shall eat no leavened bread with it; seven days shall you eat matzah therewith, even the bread of affliction; for you came forth out of the land of Mitzrayim in haste: that you may remember the day when you came forth out of the land of Mitzrayim all the days of your life.

4 There shall be no yeast seen with you in all your borders seven days; neither shall any of the flesh, which you sacrifice the first day at even, remain all night until the morning.

5 You may not sacrifice the Pesach within any of your gates, which the LORD your God gives you;

6 but at the place which the LORD your God shall choose, to cause his name to dwell in, there you shall sacrifice the Pesach at even, at the going down of the sun, at the season that you came forth out of Mitzrayim.

7 You shall roast and eat it in the place which the LORD your God shall choose: and you shall turn in the morning, and go to your tents.

8 Six days you shall eat matzah; and on the seventh day shall be a solemn assembly to the LORD your God; you shall do no work [therein].

9 Seven weeks shall you number to you: from the time you begin to put the sickle to the standing grain shall you begin to number seven weeks.

10 You shall keep the feast of weeks to the LORD your God with a tribute of a freewill-offering of your hand, which you shall give, according as the LORD your God blesses you:

11 and you shall rejoice before the LORD your God, you, and your son, and your daughter, and your man-servant, and your maid-servant, and the Levite who is within your gates, and the sojourner, and the fatherless, and the widow, who are in the midst of you, in the place which the LORD your God shall choose, to cause his name to dwell there.

12 You shall remember that you were a bondservant in Mitzrayim: and you shall observe and do these statutes.

13 You shall keep the feast of booths seven days, after that you have gathered in from your threshing floor and from your winepress:

14 and you shall rejoice in your feast, you, and your son, and your daughter, and your man-servant, and your maid-servant, and the Levite, and the sojourner, and the fatherless, and the widow, who are within your gates.

15 Seven days shall you keep a feast to the LORD your God in the place which the LORD shall choose; because the LORD your God will bless you in all your increase, and in all the work of your hands, and you shall be altogether joyful.

16 Three times in a year shall all your males appear before the LORD your God in the place which he shall choose: in the feast of matzah, and in the feast of weeks, and in the feast of booths; and they shall not appear before the LORD empty:

17 every man shall give as he is able, according to the blessing of the LORD your God which he has given you.

18 Shofetim and officers shall you make you in all your gates, which the LORD your God gives you, according to your tribes; and they shall judge the people with righteous judgment.

19 You shall not wrest justice: you shall not respect persons; neither shall you take a bribe; for a bribe does blind the eyes of the wise, and pervert the words of the righteous.

20 That which is altogether just shall you follow, that you may live, and inherit the land which the LORD your God gives you.

21 You shall not plant you an Asherah of any kind of tree beside the altar of the LORD your God, which you shall make you.

22 Neither shall you set yourself up a pillar; which the LORD your God hates.

1 You shall not sacrifice to the LORD your God an ox, or a sheep, in which is a blemish, [or] anything evil; for that is an abomination to the LORD your God.

2 If there be found in the midst of you, within any of your gates which the LORD your God gives you, man or woman, who does that which is evil in the sight of the LORD your God, in transgressing his covenant,

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

4 and it be told you, and you have heard of it, then shall you inquire diligently; and, behold, if it be true, and the thing certain, that such abomination is done in Yisra'el,

5 then shall you bring forth that man or that woman, who has done this evil thing, to your gates, even the man or the woman; and you shall stone them to death with stones.

6 At the mouth of two witnesses, or three witnesses, shall he who is to die be put to death; at the mouth of one witness he shall not be put to death.

7 The hand of the witnesses shall be first on him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. So you shall put away the evil from the midst of you.

8 If there arise 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 shall you arise, and go up to the place which the LORD your God shall choose;

9 and you shall come to the Kohanim the Levites, and to the judge who shall be in those days: and you shall inquire; and they shall show you the sentence of judgment.

10 You shall do according to the tenor of the sentence which they shall show you from that place which the LORD shall choose; and you shall observe to do according to all that they shall teach you:

11 according to the tenor 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 aside from the sentence which they shall show you, to the right hand, nor to the left.

12 The man who does presumptuously, in not listening to the Kohen who stands to minister there before the LORD your God, or to the judge, even that man shall die: and you shall put away the evil from Yisra'el.

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

14 When you are come to the land which the LORD your God gives you, and shall possess it, and shall dwell therein, and shall say, I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are round about me;

15 you shall surely set him king over you, whom the LORD your God shall choose: one from among your brothers shall you set king over you; you may not put a foreigner over you, who is not your brother.

16 Only he shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people to return to Mitzrayim, to the end that he may multiply horses; because the LORD has said to you, You shall henceforth return no more that way.

17 Neither shall he multiply wives to himself, that his heart not turn away: neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold.

18 It shall be, when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book, out of [that which is] before the Kohanim the Levites:

19 and it shall be with him, and he shall read therein 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;

20 that his heart not be lifted up above his brothers, and that he not turn aside from the mitzvah, 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 midst of Yisra'el.

1 The Kohanim the Levites, [even] all the tribe of Levi, shall have no portion nor inheritance with Yisra'el: they shall eat the offerings of the LORD made by fire, and his inheritance.

2 They shall have no inheritance among their brothers: the LORD is their inheritance, as he has spoken to them.

3 This shall be the Kohanim' due from the people, from those who offer a sacrifice, whether it be ox or sheep, that they shall give to the Kohen the shoulder, and the two cheeks, and the maw.

4 The first fruits of your grain, of your new wine, and of your oil, and the first of the fleece of your sheep, shall you give him.

5 For the LORD your God has chosen him out of all your tribes, to stand to minister in the name of the LORD, him and his sons for ever.

6 If a Levite come from any of your gates out of all Yisra'el, where he sojourns, and come with all the desire of his soul to the place which the LORD shall choose;

7 then he shall minister in the name of the LORD his God, as all his brothers the Levites do, who stand there before the LORD.

8 They shall have like portions to eat, besides that which comes of the sale of his patrimony.

9 When you are come into the land which the LORD your God gives you, you shall not learn to do after the abominations of those nations.

10 There shall not be found with you anyone who makes his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, one who uses divination, one who practices sorcery, or an enchanter, or a sorcerer,

11 or a charmer, or a consulter with a familiar spirit, or a wizard, or a necromancer.

12 For whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD: and because of these abominations the LORD your God does drive them out from before you.

13 You shall be perfect with the LORD your God.

14 For these nations, that you shall dispossess, listen to those who practice sorcery, and to diviners; but as for you, the LORD your God has not allowed you so to do.

15 The LORD your God will raise up to you a prophet from the midst of you, of your brothers, like me; to him you shall listen;

16 according to all that you desired of the LORD your God in Horev in the day of the assembly, saying, Let me not hear again the voice of the LORD my God, neither let me see this great fire any more, that I not die.

17 The LORD said to me, They have well said that which they have spoken.

18 I will raise them up a prophet from among their brothers, like you; and I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I shall command him.

19 It shall happen, that whoever will not listen to my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him.

20 But the prophet, who shall speak a word presumptuously in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or who shall speak in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die.

21 If you say in your heart, How shall we know the word which the LORD has not spoken?

22 when a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, if the thing doesn't follow, nor happen, that is the thing which the LORD has not spoken: the prophet has spoken it presumptuously, you shall not be afraid of him.

1 When the LORD your God shall cut off the nations, whose land the LORD your God gives you, and you succeed them, and dwell in their cities, and in their houses;

2 you shall set apart three cities for you in the midst of your land, which the LORD your God gives you to possess it.

3 You shall prepare you the way, and divide the borders of your land, which the LORD your God causes you to inherit, into three parts, that every manslayer may flee there.

4 This is the case of the manslayer, that shall flee there and live: whoever kills his neighbor unawares, and didn't hate him in time past;

5 as when a man goes into the forest with his neighbor to hew wood, and his hand fetches a stroke with the ax to cut down the tree, and the head slips from the handle, and lights on his neighbor, so that he dies; he shall flee to one of these cities and live:

6 lest the avenger of blood pursue the manslayer, while his heart is hot, and overtake him, because the way is long, and strike him mortally; whereas he was not worthy of death, inasmuch as he didn't hate him in time past.

7 Therefore I command you, saying, You shall set apart three cities for you.

8 If the LORD your God enlarge your border, as he has sworn to your fathers, and give you all the land which he promised to give to your fathers;

9 if you shall keep all this mitzvah to do it, which I command you this day, to love the LORD your God, and to walk ever in his ways; then shall you add three cities more for you, besides these three:

10 that innocent blood not be shed in the midst of your land, which the LORD your God gives you for an inheritance, and so blood be on you.

11 But if any man hate his neighbor, and lie in wait for him, and rise up against him, and strike him mortally so that he dies, and he flee into one of these cities;

12 then the Zakenim of his city shall send and bring him there, and deliver him into the hand of the avenger of blood, that he may die.

13 Your eye shall not pity him, but you shall put away the innocent blood from Yisra'el, that it may go well with you.

14 You shall not remove your neighbor's landmark, which they of old time have set, in your inheritance which you shall inherit, in the land that the LORD your God gives you to possess it.

15 One witness shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity, or for any sin, in any sin that he sins: at the mouth of two witnesses, or at the mouth of three witnesses, shall a matter be established.

16 If an unrighteous witness rise up against any man to testify against him of wrong-doing,

17 then both the men, between whom the controversy is, shall stand before the LORD, before the Kohanim and the judges who shall be in those days;

18 and the judges shall make diligent inquisition: and, behold, if the witness is a false witness, and has testified falsely against his brother;

19 then shall you do to him, as he had thought to do to his brother: so shall you put away the evil from the midst of you.

20 Those who remain shall hear, and fear, and shall henceforth commit no more any such evil in the midst of you.

21 Your eyes shall not pity; life [shall go] for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.

1 When you go forth to battle against your enemies, and see horses, and chariots, [and] a people more than you, you shall not be afraid of them; for the LORD your God is with you, who brought you up out of the land of Mitzrayim.

2 It shall be, when you draw near to the battle, that the Kohen shall approach and speak to the people,

3 and shall tell them, Hear, Yisra'el, you draw near this day to battle against your enemies: don't let your heart faint; don't be afraid, nor tremble, neither be scared of them;

4 for the LORD your God is he who goes with you, to fight for you against your enemies, to save you.

5 The officers shall speak to the people, saying, What man is there who has built a new house, and has not dedicated it? let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle, and another man dedicate it.

6 What man is there who has planted a vineyard, and has not used the fruit of it? let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle, and another man use the fruit of it.

7 What man is there who has pledged to be married a wife, and has not taken her? let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle, and another man take her.

8 The officers shall speak further to the people, and they shall say, What man is there who is fearful and faint-hearted? let him go and return to his house, lest his brother's heart melt as his heart.

9 It shall be, when the officers have made an end of speaking to the people, that they shall appoint captains of hosts at the head of the people.

10 When you draw near to a city to fight against it, then proclaim shalom to it.

11 It shall be, if it make you answer of shalom, and open to you, then it shall be, that all the people who are found therein shall become tributary to you, and shall serve you.

12 If it will make no shalom with you, but will make war against you, then you shall besiege it:

13 and when the LORD your God delivers it into your hand, you shall strike every male of it with the edge of the sword:

14 but the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil of it, shall you take for a prey to yourself; and you shall eat the spoil of your enemies, which the LORD your God has given you.

15 Thus shall you do to all the cities which are very far off from you, which are not of the cities of these nations.

16 But of the cities of these peoples, that the LORD your God gives you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes;

17 but you shall utterly destroy them: the Hittite, and the Amori, the Kana`ani, and the Perizzi, the Hivvi, and the Yevusi; as the LORD your God has commanded you;

18 that they not teach you to do after all their abominations, which they have done to their gods; so would you sin against the LORD your God.

19 When you shall besiege a city a long time, in making war against it to take it, you shall not destroy the trees of it by wielding an ax against them; for you may eat of them, and you shall not cut them down; for is the tree of the field man, that it should be besieged of you?

20 Only the trees of which you know that they are not trees for food, you shall destroy and cut them down; and you shall build bulwarks against the city that makes war with you, until it fall.

1 If one be found slain in the land which the LORD your God gives you to possess it, lying in the field, and it isn't known who has struck him;

2 then your Zakenim and your judges shall come forth, and they shall measure to the cities which are round about him who is slain:

3 and it shall be, that the city which is nearest to the slain man, even the Zakenim of that city shall take a heifer of the herd, which hasn't been worked with, and which has not drawn in the yoke;

4 and the Zakenim of that city shall bring down the heifer to a valley with running water, which is neither plowed nor sown, and shall break the heifer's neck there in the valley.

5 The Kohanim the sons of Levi shall come near; for them the LORD your God has chosen to minister to him, and to bless in the name of the LORD; and according to their word shall every controversy and every stroke be.

6 All the Zakenim of that city, who are nearest to the slain man, shall wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the valley;

7 and they shall answer and say, Our hands have not shed this blood, neither have our eyes seen it.

8 Forgive, the LORD, your people Yisra'el, whom you have redeemed, and don't allow innocent blood [to remain] in the midst of your people Yisra'el. The blood shall be forgiven them.

9 So shall you put away the innocent blood from the midst of you, when you shall do that which is right in the eyes of the LORD.