No defective ox or sheep may be offered; a blemished sacrifice is an abomination.
1 You shall not sacrifice to Yahweh your God an ox or a sheep in which is a defect or anything evil; for that is an abomination to Yahweh your God.
A man or woman who worships the sun, moon, or host of heaven transgresses the covenant.
Deuteronomy 17:2-7
2 If there is found among you, within any of your gates which Yahweh your God gives you, a man or woman who does that which is evil in Yahweh your God’s sight in transgressing his covenant,
3 and has gone and served other gods and worshiped them, or the sun, or the moon, or any of the stars of the sky, which I have not commanded,
Inquire diligently; if the abomination is true and certain, stone the offender at the gate.
4 and you are told, and you have heard of it, then you shall inquire diligently. Behold, if it is true, and the thing certain, that such abomination is done in Israel,
5 then you shall bring out that man or that woman who has done this evil thing to your gates, even that same man or woman; and you shall stone them to death with stones.
The due-process principle: capital punishment requires the testimony of two or three witnesses; one witness is never sufficient.
6 At the mouth of two witnesses, or three witnesses, he who is to die shall be put to death. At the mouth of one witness he shall not be put to death.
The witnesses bear responsibility by striking first; then all the people. Purge the evil from your midst.
7 The hands of the witnesses shall be first on him to put him to death, and afterward the hands of all the people. So you shall remove the evil from among you.
Cases too difficult for local judges go to the Levitical priests and the judge at the chosen place.
Deuteronomy 17:8-13
8 If there arises a matter too hard for you in judgment, between blood and blood, between plea and plea, and between stroke and stroke, being matters of controversy within your gates, then you shall arise, and go up to the place which Yahweh your God chooses.
9 You shall come to the priests who are Levites and to the judge who shall be in those days. You shall inquire, and they shall give you the verdict.
Do according to their instruction and verdict; do not deviate right or left.
10 You shall do according to the decisions of the verdict which they shall give you from that place which Yahweh chooses. You shall observe to do according to all that they shall teach you.
11 According to the decisions of the law which they shall teach you, and according to the judgment which they shall tell you, you shall do. You shall not turn away from the sentence which they announce to you, to the right hand, nor to the left.
The person who refuses the priest's or judge's authority shall die.
12 The man who does presumptuously in not listening to the priest who stands to minister there before Yahweh your God, or to the judge, even that man shall die. You shall put away the evil from Israel.
The deterrent function: all Israel hears, fears, and does not act presumptuously.
13 All the people shall hear and fear, and do no more presumptuously.
The monarchy anticipated: Israel will request a king like the surrounding nations.
Deuteronomy 17:14-20
14 When you have come to the land which Yahweh your God gives you, and possess it and dwell in it, and say, “I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are around me,”
The king must be the LORD's choice and must be from among the brothers — not a foreigner.
15 you shall surely set him whom Yahweh your God chooses as king over yourselves. You shall set as king over you one from among your brothers. You may not put a foreigner over you, who is not your brother.
The first royal prohibition: no acquiring many horses, especially not by returning to Egypt for cavalry.
16 Only he shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt, to the end that he may multiply horses; because Yahweh has said to you, “You shall not go back that way again.”
17 He shall not multiply wives to himself, that his heart not turn away. He shall not greatly multiply to himself silver and gold.
When he sits on the throne, the king must personally write a copy of this Torah from the scroll before the Levitical priests.
18 It shall be, when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write himself a copy of this law in a book, out of that which is before the Levitical priests.
19 It shall be with him, and he shall read from it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear Yahweh his God, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes, to do them;
20 that his heart not be lifted up above his brothers, and that he not turn away from the commandment to the right hand, or to the left, to the end that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he and his children, in the middle of Israel.