New American Bible, Revised Edition

Deuteronomy 17:7-17 New American Bible, Revised Edition (NABRE)

7. The hands of the witnesses shall be the first raised to put the person to death, and afterward the hands of all the people. Thus shall you purge the evil from your midst.

8. If there is a case for judgment which proves too baffling for you to decide, in a matter of bloodshed or of law or of injury, matters of dispute within your gates, you shall then go up to the place which the Lord, your God, will choose,

9. to the levitical priests or to the judge who is in office at that time. They shall investigate the case and then announce to you the decision.

10. You shall act according to the decision they announce to you in the place which the Lord will choose, carefully observing everything as they instruct you.

11. You shall carry out the instruction they give you and the judgment they pronounce, without turning aside either to the right or left from the decision they announce to you.

12. Anyone who acts presumptuously and does not obey the priest who officiates there in the ministry of the Lord, your God, or the judge, shall die. Thus shall you purge the evil from Israel.

13. And all the people, on hearing of it, shall fear, and will never again act presumptuously.

14. When you have come into the land which the Lord, your God, is giving you, and have taken possession of it and settled in it, should you then decide, “I will set a king over me, like all the surrounding nations,”

15. you may indeed set over you a king whom the Lord, your God, will choose. Someone from among your own kindred you may set over you as king; you may not set over you a foreigner, who is no kin of yours.

16. But he shall not have a great number of horses; nor shall he make his people go back again to Egypt to acquire many horses, for the Lord said to you, Do not go back that way again.

17. Neither shall he have a great number of wives, lest his heart turn away, nor shall he accumulate a vast amount of silver and gold.