Study Desk

Every man should give as he is able, as the Lord your God has given to you.

"Choose judges and other leaders for all your towns the Lord your God is giving you, among each of your family groups. They must be wise in judging the people.

Follow what is right, and only what is right. Then you will live and receive the land the Lord your God is giving you.

"When you make an altar for the Lord your God, do not put beside it a wooden god like the false goddess Asherah.

Do not set up for yourself a pillar for worship that the Lord your God hates.

"Do not give to the Lord your God a bull or a sheep which is not perfect. For that is a hated thing to the Lord your God.

"You may find among you, within any of your towns the Lord your God gives you, a man or a woman who does what is sinful in the eyes of the Lord your God by sinning against the Lord's agreement.

"There may be a problem too hard for you to decide, between two kinds of killing, between two kinds of questions about the law, between two kinds of hurting, problems argued about in your courts. Then get up and go to the place which the Lord your God chooses.

The man must die who does foolish things and will not listen to the judge or the religious leader who serves the Lord your God. You must get rid of sin from Israel.

"When you go into the land the Lord your God gives you, and own it and live in it, and you say, ‘I will have a king rule over me like all the nations around me,'

then you will set a king over you whom the Lord your God chooses. Set a king over you from among your brothers. Do not give a stranger power over you if he is not your brother.

It should be kept with him and he should read it all the days of his life. Then he will learn to fear the Lord his God, by being careful to obey all the words of these Laws.

For the Lord your God has chosen him and his sons from all your families, to stand and serve in the name of the Lord forever.

then he may work in the name of the Lord his God, like all his brother Levites who stand there before the Lord.

"When you go into the land the Lord your God gives you, do not learn to follow the hated and sinful ways of those nations.

For the Lord hates whoever does these things. And because of these hated things, the Lord your God will drive them out from in front of you.

You must be without blame before the Lord your God.

For these nations that you are about to take listen to those who do witchcraft and use secret ways. But the Lord your God has not allowed you to do so.

"The Lord your God will give you a man who speaks for God like me from among your own brothers. You must listen to him.

This is what you asked of the Lord your God at Sinai on the day of the meeting, when you said, ‘Do not let me hear the voice of the Lord my God again. Do not let me see this fire any more, or I will die.'