Study Desk

"You shall not plant for yourself an Asherah of any kind of tree beside the altar of Yahweh your God, which you shall make for yourself.

And you shall not set up for yourself a sacred pillar which Yahweh your God hates.

"You shall not sacrifice to Yahweh your God an ox or a sheep which has a defect or any blemish, for that is an abominable thing to Yahweh your God.

"If there is found in your midst, in any of your gates of the towns which Yahweh your God is giving you, a man or a woman who does what is evil in the sight of Yahweh your God, by trespassing against His covenant,

"If any case is too difficult for you to judge, between one kind of homicide or another, between one kind of lawsuit or another, and between one kind of assault or another, being cases of dispute in your gates, then you shall arise and go up to the place which Yahweh your God chooses.

And the man who acts presumptuously by not listening to the priest who stands there to minister to Yahweh your God, or to the judge, that man shall die; thus you shall purge the evil from Israel.

"When you enter the land which Yahweh your God gives you, and you possess it and live in it, and you say, ‘I will set a king over me like all the nations who are around me,'

you shall surely set a king over you whom Yahweh your God chooses, one from among your brothers you shall set as king over yourselves; you may not put a foreigner over yourselves who is not your brother.

And it shall be with him, and he shall read it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear Yahweh his God, to carefully observe all the words of this law and these statutes,

For Yahweh your God has chosen him and his sons from all your tribes, to stand to minister in the name of Yahweh all the days.

then he shall minister in the name of Yahweh his God like all his brothers the Levites who stand there before Yahweh.

"When you enter the land which Yahweh your God gives you, you shall not learn to imitate the abominations of those nations.

For whoever does these things is an abomination to Yahweh; and because of these abominations Yahweh your God will dispossess them from before you.

You shall be blameless before Yahweh your God.

For those nations, which you shall dispossess, listen to those who practice soothsaying and to diviners, but as for you, Yahweh your God has not allowed you to do so.

"Yahweh your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers; you shall listen to him.

This is according to all that you asked of Yahweh your God in Horeb on the day of the assembly, saying, ‘Let me not hear again the voice of Yahweh my God; let me not see this great fire anymore, or I will die.'

"When Yahweh your God cuts off the nations, whose land Yahweh your God gives you, and you dispossess them and settle in their cities and in their houses,

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

You shall prepare the roads for yourself, and divide into three parts the territory of your land which Yahweh your God will give you to inherit, so that any manslayer may flee there.