Deuteronomy 17

17 ¹Do not sacrifice to your Father an ox or sheep with any defect or serious flaw; that is detestable to your Father.

²If a man or woman is found among you, in any town your Father gives you, doing evil in your Father's eyes by breaking his covenant, ³and served other gods, bowing to them—the sun, moon, or any of heaven's host—which I did not command, ⁴and you are told of it and hear it, investigate carefully. If it is true, the matter certain, that this detestable thing was done in Israel, ⁵then bring out to your gates that man or woman who did this evil thing—that man or woman—and stone them to death. ⁶On the word of two witnesses or three, the condemned must die; he must not die on one witness's word. ⁷The witnesses' hand must be on him first to kill him, then the hand of all the people. So you remove the evil from among you.

The Father's Courts of Justice

⁸If a case is too hard for you to judge—between bloodshed and bloodshed, claim and claim, assault and assault, disputes in your towns—go up to the place your Father will choose. ⁹Go to the Levitical priests and the judge serving then; ask, and they will tell you the verdict. ¹⁰Act on what they tell you from the place our Father chooses; be careful to do all they teach you. ¹¹Follow the instruction they teach and the ruling they give you; don't turn from the word they declare, right or left. ¹²Anyone who acts arrogantly, refusing to listen to the priest standing to serve there before your Father, or to the judge, must die. You must purge the evil from Israel. ¹³And all the people will hear and be afraid, and act arrogantly no longer.

The Father's Guidelines for a King

¹⁴When you enter the land your Father is giving you, possess it, settle there, and say, "Let me set a king over me, like all the nations around me," ¹⁵you may indeed set over you the king your Father chooses; set over you a king from among your brothers. You may not put a foreigner over you, who is not your brother. ¹⁶He must not acquire many horses for himself, or send the people back to Egypt for more, since our Father told you, "Never go back that way." ¹⁷He must not take many wives, or his heart will turn away; nor amass much silver and gold for himself.

¹⁸When he sits on his royal throne, he must write himself a copy of this law on a scroll, before the levitical priests. ¹⁹It must stay with him, and he must read from it all his life, so he learns to fear his Father, keeping all the words of this law and these decrees, doing them, ²⁰so his heart won't rise above his brothers, and he won't turn from the command right or left, so he and his children reign long over his kingdom in Israel.