Study Desk

Everyone must appear with a gift suited to his means, according to the blessing the Lord your God has given you.

“If a man or woman among you in one of your towns that the Lord your God will give you is discovered doing evil in the sight of the Lord your God and violating his covenant

He must not acquire many wives for himself so that his heart won’t go astray. He must not acquire very large amounts of silver and gold for himself.

When he is seated on his royal throne, he is to write a copy of this instruction for himself on a scroll in the presence of the Levitical priests.

It is to remain with him, and he is to read from it all the days of his life, so that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, to observe all the words of this instruction, and to do these statutes.

Then his heart will not be exalted above his countrymen, he will not turn from this command to the right or the left, and he and his sons will continue reigning many years in Israel.

Although Levi has no inheritance among his brothers, the Lord is his inheritance, as he promised him.

For the Lord your God has chosen him and his sons from all your tribes to stand and minister in his name from now on.

he may serve in the name of the Lord his God like all his fellow Levites who minister there in the presence of the Lord.

No one among you is to sacrifice his son or daughter in the fire, practice divination, tell fortunes, interpret omens, practice sorcery,

I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. I will put my words in his mouth, and he will tell them everything I command him.

“Here is the law concerning a case of someone who kills a person and flees there to save his life, having killed his neighbor accidentally without previously hating him:

If, for example, he goes into the forest with his neighbor to cut timber, and his hand swings the ax to chop down a tree, but the blade flies off the handle and strikes his neighbor so that he dies, that person may flee to one of these cities and live.

Otherwise, the avenger of blood in the heat of his anger might pursue the one who committed manslaughter, overtake him because the distance is great, and strike him dead. Yet he did not deserve to die, since he did not previously hate his neighbor.

provided you keep every one of these commands I am giving you today and follow them, loving the Lord your God and walking in his ways at all times—you are to add three more cities to these three.

But if someone hates his neighbor, lies in ambush for him, attacks him, and strikes him fatally, and flees to one of these cities,

the elders of his city are to send for him, take him from there, and hand him over to the avenger of blood and he will die.

The judges are to make a careful investigation, and if the witness turns out to be a liar who has falsely accused his brother,

you must do to him as he intended to do to his brother. You must purge the evil from you.

The officers will continue to address the army and say, ‘Is there any man who is afraid or cowardly? Let him leave and return home, so that his brothers won’t lose heart as he did.’