You must only sacrifice the Passover animal at the place where Yahweh your God chooses to have His name dwell. Do this in the evening as the sun sets at the same time of day you departed from Egypt.

You are to cook and eat it in the place the Lord your God chooses, and you are to return to your tents in the morning.

You must eat unleavened bread for six days. On the seventh day there is to be a solemn assembly to the Lord your God, and you must not do any work.

“You are to count seven weeks, counting the weeks from the time the sickle is first put to the standing grain.

You are to celebrate the Festival of Weeks to the Lord your God with a freewill offering that you give in proportion to how the Lord your God has blessed you.

Rejoice before Yahweh your God in the place where He chooses to have His name dwell—you, your son and daughter, your male and female slave, the Levite within your gates, as well as the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow among you.

“You are to celebrate the Festival of Booths for seven days when you have gathered in everything from your threshing floor and winepress.

You are to hold a seven-day festival for the Lord your God in the place He chooses, because the Lord your God will bless you in all your produce and in all the work of your hands, and you will have abundant joy.

“All your males are to appear three times a year before the Lord your God in the place He chooses: at the Festival of Unleavened Bread, the Festival of Weeks, and the Festival of Booths. No one is to appear before the Lord empty-handed.

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

“Appoint judges and officials for your tribes in all your towns the Lord your God is giving you. They are to judge the people with righteous judgment.

Do not deny justice or show partiality to anyone. Do not accept a bribe, for it blinds the eyes of the wise and twists the words of the righteous.

“Do not set up an Asherah of any kind of wood next to the altar you will build for the Lord your God,

and do not set up a sacred pillar; the Lord your God hates them.

“You must not sacrifice to the Lord your God an ox or sheep with a defect or any serious flaw, for that is detestable to the Lord your God.

and has gone to worship other gods by bowing down to the sun, moon, or all the stars in the sky—which I have forbidden—

and if you are told or hear about it, you must investigate it thoroughly. If the report turns out to be true that this detestable thing has happened in Israel,

you must bring out to your gates that man or woman who has done this evil thing and stone them to death.

The one condemned to die is to be executed on the testimony of two or three witnesses. No one is to be executed on the testimony of a single witness.

The witnesses’ hands are to be the first in putting him to death, and after that, the hands of all the people. You must purge the evil from you.

“If a case is too difficult for you—concerning bloodshed, lawsuits, or assaults—cases disputed at your gates, you must go up to the place the Lord your God chooses.

You are to go to the Levitical priests and to the judge who presides at that time. Ask, and they will give you a verdict in the case.

You must abide by the verdict they give you at the place the Lord chooses. Be careful to do exactly as they instruct you.

You must abide by the instruction they give you and the verdict they announce to you. Do not turn to the right or the left from the decision they declare to you.

The person who acts arrogantly, refusing to listen either to the priest who stands there serving the Lord your God or to the judge, must die. You must purge the evil from Israel.

“When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, take possession of it, live in it, and say, ‘I will set a king over me like all the nations around me,’

you are to appoint over you the king the Lord your God chooses. Appoint a king from your brothers. You are not to set a foreigner over you, or one who is not of your people.

However, he must not acquire many horses for himself or send the people back to Egypt to acquire many horses, for the Lord has told you, ‘You are never to go back that way again.’

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 ruling many years over Israel.

This is the priests’ share from the people who offer a sacrifice, whether it is an ox, a sheep, or a goat; the priests are to be given the shoulder, jaws, and stomach.

You are to give him the firstfruits of your grain, new wine, and oil, and the first sheared wool of your flock.

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

When a Levite leaves one of your towns where he lives in Israel and wants to go to the place the Lord chooses,

“When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not imitate the detestable customs of those nations.

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

Everyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord, and the Lord your God is driving out the nations before you because of these detestable things.

Though these nations you are about to drive out listen to fortune-tellers and diviners, the Lord your God has not permitted you to do this.

“The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own brothers. You must listen to him.

This is what you requested from the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said, ‘Let us not continue to hear the voice of the Lord our God or see this great fire any longer, so that we will not die!’

Then the Lord said to me, ‘They have spoken well.

I will hold accountable whoever does not listen to My words that he speaks in My name.

But the prophet who dares to speak a message in My name that I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods—that prophet must die.’

You may say to yourself, ‘How can we recognize a message the Lord has not spoken?’

When a prophet speaks in the Lord’s name, and the message does not come true or is not fulfilled, that is a message the Lord has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously. Do not be afraid of him.

you are to set apart three cities for yourselves within the land the Lord your God is giving you to possess.

You are to determine the distances and divide the land the Lord your God is granting you as an inheritance into three regions, so that anyone who commits manslaughter can flee to these cities.

“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 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.

This is why I am commanding you to set apart three cities for yourselves.

If the Lord your God enlarges your territory as He swore to your fathers, and gives you all the land He promised to give them—

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 must send for him, take him from there, and hand him over to the avenger of blood and he will die.

“You must not move your neighbor’s boundary marker, established at the start in the inheritance you will receive in the land the Lord your God is giving you to possess.

“One witness cannot establish any wrongdoing or sin against a person, whatever that person has done. A fact must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.

the two people in the dispute must stand in the presence of the Lord before the priests and judges in authority at that time.

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.

Then everyone else will hear and be afraid, and they will never again do anything evil like this among you.

“When you go out to war against your enemies and see horses, chariots, and an army larger than yours, do not be afraid of them, for the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, is with you.

When you are about to engage in battle, the priest is to come forward and address the army.

He is to say to them: ‘Listen, Israel: Today you are about to engage in battle with your enemies. Do not be cowardly. Do not be afraid, alarmed, or terrified because of them.

For the Lord your God is the One who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to give you victory.’

“The officers are to address the army, ‘Has any man built a new house and not dedicated it? Let him leave and return home. Otherwise, he may die in battle and another man dedicate it.

Has any man planted a vineyard and not begun to enjoy its fruit? Let him leave and return home. Otherwise he may die in battle and another man enjoy its fruit.

Has any man become engaged to a woman and not married her? Let him leave and return home. Otherwise he may die in battle and another man marry her.’

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’ hearts won’t melt like his own.’

When the officers have finished addressing the army, they will appoint military commanders to lead it.

“When you approach a city to fight against it, you must make an offer of peace.

If it accepts your offer of peace and opens its gates to you, all the people found in it will become forced laborers for you and serve you.

However, if it does not make peace with you but wages war against you, lay siege to it.

When the Lord your God hands it over to you, you must strike down all its males with the sword.

This is how you are to treat all the cities that are far away from you and are not among the cities of these nations.

so that they won’t teach you to do all the detestable things they do for their gods, and you sin against the Lord your God.

“When you lay siege to a city for a long time, fighting against it in order to capture it, you must not destroy its trees by putting an ax to them, because you can get food from them. You must not cut them down. Are trees of the field human, to come under siege by you?

But you may destroy the trees that you know do not produce food. You may cut them down to build siege works against the city that is waging war against you, until it falls.

“If a murder victim is found lying in a field in the land the Lord your God is giving you to possess, and it is not known who killed him,

your elders and judges must come out and measure the distance from the victim to the nearby cities.

The elders of the city nearest to the victim are to get a young cow that has not been yoked or used for work.

The elders of that city will bring the cow down to a continually flowing stream, to a place not tilled or sown, and they will break its neck there by the stream.

Then the priests, the sons of Levi, will come forward, for Yahweh your God has chosen them to serve Him and pronounce blessings in His name, and they are to give a ruling in every dispute and case of assault.

All the elders of the city nearest to the victim will wash their hands by the stream over the young cow whose neck has been broken.

Lord, forgive Your people Israel You redeemed, and do not hold the shedding of innocent blood against them.’ Then they will be absolved of responsibility for bloodshed.

“When you go to war against your enemies and the Lord your God hands them over to you and you take some of them prisoner, and

if you see a beautiful woman among the captives, desire her, and want to take her as your wife,

you are to bring her into your house. She must shave her head, trim her nails,

Then if you are not satisfied with her, you are to let her go where she wants, but you must not sell her for money or treat her as merchandise, because you have humiliated her.

“If a man has two wives, one loved and the other unloved, and both the loved and the unloved bear him sons, and if the unloved wife has the firstborn son,

when that man gives what he has to his sons as an inheritance, he is not to show favoritism to the son of the loved wife as his firstborn over the firstborn of the unloved wife.

He must acknowledge the firstborn, the son of the unloved wife, by giving him two shares of his estate, for he is the firstfruits of his virility; he has the rights of the firstborn.

“If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father or mother and doesn’t listen to them even after they discipline him,

his father and mother must take hold of him and bring him to the elders of his city, to the gate of his hometown.

They will say to the elders of his city, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious; he doesn’t obey us. He’s a glutton and a drunkard.’

Then all the men of his city will stone him to death. You must purge the evil from you, and all Israel will hear and be afraid.

you are not to leave his corpse on the tree overnight but are to bury him that day, for anyone hung on a tree is under God’s curse. You must not defile the land the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance.

“If you see your brother’s ox or sheep straying, you must not ignore it; make sure you return it to your brother.