Study Desk

but at the place where the LORD your God chooses to establish His Name (Presence), you shall sacrifice the Passover [lamb] in the evening at sunset, at the time that you came out of Egypt.

"You shall cook and eat it in the place which the LORD your God chooses. In the morning you are to return to your tents.

"For six days you shall eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day there shall be a celebration to the LORD your God; so you shall do no work [on that day].

"Then you shall celebrate the Feast of Weeks to the LORD your God with a tribute of a freewill offering from your hand, which you shall give [to Him] just as the LORD your God blesses you;

and you shall rejoice before the LORD your God, you and your son and your daughter and your male and female servants and the Levite who is within your [city] gates, and the stranger and the orphan and the widow who are among you, at the place where the LORD your God chooses to establish His Name (Presence).

"Seven days you shall celebrate a feast to the LORD your God in the place which the LORD chooses, because the LORD your God will bless you in all your produce and in all the work of your hands, so that you will be altogether joyful.

"Three times a year all your males shall appear before the LORD your God in the place which He chooses, at the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Passover) and at the Feast of Weeks (Pentecost) and at the Feast of Booths (Tabernacles), and they shall not appear before the LORD empty-handed.

"Every man shall give as he is able, in accordance with the blessing which the LORD your God has given you.

"You shall appoint judges and officers in all your cities (gates) which the LORD your God is giving you, according to your tribes, and they shall judge the people with righteous judgment.

"You shall pursue justice, and only justice [that which is uncompromisingly righteous], so that you may live and take possession of the land which the LORD your God is giving you.

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

"You shall not set up for yourself a sacred pillar which the LORD your God hates.

"You shall not sacrifice to the LORD your God an ox or sheep with a blemish or any defect, for that is a detestable thing to the LORD your God.

"If there is discovered among you, within any of your cities, which the LORD your God is giving you, a man or a woman who does evil in the sight of the LORD your God, by transgressing (violating) His covenant,

"If any case is too difficult for you to judge—between one kind of homicide and another, between one kind of lawsuit and another, between one kind of assault and another, being controversial issues in your courts—then you shall arise and go to the place which the LORD your God chooses.

"The man who acts presumptuously and insolently by not listening to the priest who stands there to serve the LORD your God, nor to the judge, that man shall die; so you shall remove the evil from Israel.

"When you enter the land which the LORD your God is giving you, and you take possession of it and live there, and you say, 'I will set a king over me like all the nations who are around me,'

you shall most certainly set a king over you whom the LORD your God chooses. You shall set a king over you from among your countrymen (brothers); you may not choose a foreigner [to rule] over you who is not your countryman.

"He shall not acquire multiple wives for himself, or else his heart will turn away [from God]; nor [for the same reason] shall he acquire great amounts of silver and gold.

"And it shall be with him and he shall read it all the days of his life, so that he may learn to fear [and worship] the LORD his God [with awe-filled reverence and profound respect], by carefully obeying (keeping foremost in his thoughts and actively doing) all the words of this law and these statutes,