You shall utterly destroy all the places where the nations whom you shall dispossess serve their gods, on the high mountains and the hills and under every green [leafy] tree.

But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he has counseled rebellion against the Lord your God who brought you from the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of slavery, to draw you away from the way in which the Lord your God has commanded you to walk. So you shall remove the evil from among you.

So you shall stone him to death with stones, because he has tried to draw you away from the Lord your God who brought you from the land of Egypt, from the house of slavery.

then you shall investigate and search out [witnesses] and ask thorough questions. If it is true and the matter is established that this loathsome thing has been done among you,

then take an awl and pierce it through his ear into the door, and he shall [willingly] be your servant always. Also you shall do the same for your maidservant.

“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.

and if it is told to you and you hear about it, then you shall investigate thoroughly [all the charges]. If it is confirmed beyond doubt that this detestable thing has been done in Israel,

You shall be blameless (complete, perfect) before the Lord your God.

When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord and the thing does not happen or come true, that is the thing which the Lord has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you shall not be afraid of him.

as [for example] when a man goes into the forest with his neighbor to cut wood, and his hand swings the axe to cut down the tree, but the iron head slips off the wooden handle and hits his companion and he dies—the offender may escape to one of these cities and live;

and shall say to them, ‘Hear, O Israel: you are advancing today to battle against your enemies. Do not lack courage. Do not be afraid, or panic, or tremble [in terror] before them,

“When you advance to a city to fight against it, you shall [first] offer it terms of peace.

“When you besiege a city for a long time, making war against it in order to capture it, you shall not destroy its [fruit-bearing] trees by swinging an axe against them; for you may eat from them, and you shall not cut them down. For is the tree of the field a man, that it should be besieged (destroyed) by you?

“And if a man has committed a sin worthy of death, and he is put to death and [afterward] you hang him on a tree [as a public example],

his body shall not hang all night on the tree, but you shall most certainly bury him on the same day (for he who is hanged is cursed by God), so that you do not defile your land which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance.

“If you happen to come upon a bird’s nest along the road, in any tree or on the ground, with young ones or eggs, and the mother [bird] is sitting on the young or on the eggs, you shall not take the mother with the young.

“But if this charge is true that the evidence of virginity was not found in the young woman,

then they shall bring her out to the doorway of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death because she has committed a deliberate sin in Israel by playing the prostitute in her father’s house. So you shall remove the evil from among you.

When you beat [the olives off of] your olive tree, do not search through the branches again; [whatever is left] shall be for the stranger, for the orphan, and for the widow.

“You shall not have in your bag inaccurate weights, a heavy and a light [so you can cheat others].

You shall not have in your house inaccurate measures, a large and a small.

Then the Lord appeared in the tent in a pillar of cloud, and the pillar of cloud stood beside the doorway of the tent.