“If any case is too difficult for you to judge—between one kind of homicide and another, between one kind of lawsuit and another, between one kind of assault and another, being controversial issues in your courts—then you shall arise and go to the place which the Lord your God chooses.

“Then I commanded your judges at that time, saying, ‘Hear the matters between your brothers [your fellow countrymen], and judge righteously and fairly between a man and his brother, or the stranger (resident alien, foreigner) who is with him.

“If there is a controversy between men, and they go to court, and the judges decide [the issue] between them, and they judge in favor of the innocent and condemn the guilty,

I was standing between the Lord and you at that time, to declare to you the word of the Lord; for you were afraid because of the fire and did not go up the mountain. He said,