Deuteronomy 17:8-20

Law Courts

8 If cases come before your courts that are too difficult for you to judge—whether bloodshed, lawsuits or assaults—take them to the place the LORD your God will choose.
9 Go to the Levitical priests and to the judge who is in office at that time. Inquire of them and they will give you the verdict.
10 You must act according to the decisions they give you at the place the LORD will choose. Be careful to do everything they instruct you to do.
11 Act according to whatever they teach you and the decisions they give you. Do not turn aside from what they tell you, to the right or to the left.
12 Anyone who shows contempt for the judge or for the priest who stands ministering there to the LORD your God is to be put to death. You must purge the evil from Israel.
13 All the people will hear and be afraid, and will not be contemptuous again.

The King

14 When you enter the land the LORD your God is giving you and have taken possession of it and settled in it, and you say, “Let us set a king over us like all the nations around us,”
15 be sure to appoint over you a king the LORD your God chooses. He must be from among your fellow Israelites. Do not place a foreigner over you, one who is not an Israelite.
16 The king, moreover, must not acquire great numbers of horses for himself or make the people return to Egypt to get more of them, for the LORD has told you, “You are not to go back that way again.”
17 He must not take many wives, or his heart will be led astray. He must not accumulate large amounts of silver and gold.
18 When he takes the throne of his kingdom, he is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of this law, taken from that of the Levitical priests.
19 It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to revere the LORD his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decrees
20 and not consider himself better than his fellow Israelites and turn from the law to the right or to the left. Then he and his descendants will reign a long time over his kingdom in Israel.

Cross References 34

  • 1. Exodus 21:6
  • 2. 2 Chronicles 19:10
  • 3. Deuteronomy 12:5; Psalms 122:3-5; Haggai 2:11
  • 4. Deuteronomy 24:8; Deuteronomy 27:9
  • 5. S Exodus 21:6
  • 6. S Genesis 25:22; Deuteronomy 19:17; Ezekiel 44:24; Haggai 2:11
  • 7. S Leviticus 10:11; S Deuteronomy 5:32; Deuteronomy 25:1
  • 8. Numbers 15:30
  • 9. S Numbers 16:9
  • 10. ver 13; S Genesis 17:14; Deuteronomy 13:11; Deuteronomy 18:20; Deuteronomy 19:20; 1 Kings 18:40; Jeremiah 14:14; Hosea 4:4; Zechariah 13:3
  • 11. S Deuteronomy 13:5
  • 12. S ver 12; Deuteronomy 13:11; Deuteronomy 19:20
  • 13. S Numbers 33:53
  • 14. Joshua 21:43
  • 15. Deuteronomy 11:31; 1Sa 8:5,19-20; 1 Samuel 10:19
  • 16. 1 Samuel 16:3; 2 Samuel 5:3
  • 17. Jeremiah 30:21
  • 18. Isaiah 2:7; Isaiah 30:16
  • 19. 1 Samuel 8:11; 1 Kings 4:26; 1 Kings 9:19; 1 Kings 10:26; 2 Chronicles 1:14; Psalms 20:7
  • 20. 1 Kings 10:29; Isaiah 31:1; Jeremiah 42:14; Hosea 11:5
  • 21. 1 Kings 10:28; Isaiah 31:1; Ezekiel 17:15
  • 22. S Exodus 13:17
  • 23. S Exodus 34:16; 2 Samuel 5:13; 2 Samuel 12:11; 1 Kings 11:3; 2 Chronicles 11:21
  • 24. 1 Kings 11:2; Proverbs 31:3
  • 25. 1 Kings 10:27
  • 26. 2 Chronicles 1:11; Isaiah 2:7
  • 27. 1 Kings 1:46; 1 Chronicles 29:23
  • 28. Deuteronomy 31:22,24; Joshua 24:26; 1 Samuel 10:25
  • 29. 2 Chronicles 23:11
  • 30. Deuteronomy 4:9-10; Joshua 1:8
  • 31. Deuteronomy 11:13; 1 Kings 3:3; 1 Kings 11:38; 2 Kings 22:2
  • 32. Joshua 23:6; Job 23:12; Psalms 119:102; 1 Kings 15:5
  • 33. S Deuteronomy 5:32; S 1 Kings 9:4
  • 34. 1 Samuel 8:5; 1 Samuel 10:25; 1 Kings 2:3; 1 Chronicles 28:8
Scripture quoted by permission.  Quotations designated (NIV) are from THE HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®.  NIV®.  Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica.  All rights reserved worldwide.