Study Desk

You are to make judges and overseers in all your towns which the Lord your God gives you, for every tribe: and they are to be upright men, judging the people in righteousness.

Then you are to take the man or woman who has done the evil to the public place of your town, and they are to be stoned with stones till they are dead.

And come before the priests, the Levites, or before him who is judge at the time: and they will go into the question and give you a decision:

And you are to be guided by the decision they give in the place named by the Lord, and do whatever they say:

Acting in agreement with their teaching and the decision they give: not turning to one side or the other from the word they have given you.

And they will have no heritage among their countrymen: the Lord is their heritage, as he has said to them.

So that you may not take them as your example and do all the disgusting things which they do in the worship of their gods, so sinning against the Lord your God.

And they are to take the cow into a valley where there is flowing water, and which is not ploughed or planted, and there the neck of the cow is to be broken:

Then the priests, the sons of Levi, are to come near; for they have been marked out by the Lord your God to be his servants and to give blessings in the name of the Lord; and by their decision every argument and every blow is to be judged:

Have mercy, O Lord, on your people Israel whom you have made free, and take away from your people the crime of a death without cause. Then they will no longer be responsible for the man's death.

If a man has a son who is hard-hearted and uncontrolled, who gives no attention to the voice of his father and mother, and will not be ruled by them, though they give him punishment:

And now he has put shame on her, saying that she is not a virgin; but here is the sign that she is a virgin. Then they are to put her clothing before the responsible men of the town.

Then they are to make the girl come to the door of her father's house and she will be stoned to death by the men of the town, because she has done evil and put shame on Israel, by acting as a loose woman in her father's house: so you are to put away evil from among you.

Because they gave you no bread or water on your way, when you came out of Egypt: and they got Balaam, the son of Peor, from Pethor in Aram-naharaim to put curses on you.

If a man takes a wife, and after they are married she is unpleasing to him because of some bad quality in her, let him give her a statement in writing and send her away from his house.

If there is an argument between men and they go to law with one another, let the judges give their decision for the upright, and against the wrongdoer.

When you have taken out a tenth from the tenth of all your produce in the third year, which is the year when this has to be done, give it to the Levite, and the man from a strange land, and the child without a father, and the widow, so that they may have food in your towns and be full;

By the power of the Lord, those who take arms against you will be overcome before you: they will come out against you one way, and will go in flight from you seven ways.

And all the peoples of the earth will see that the name of the Lord is on you, and they will go in fear of you.

You will put in vines and take care of them, but you will get no wine or grapes from them; for they will be food for worms.