¹⁴^*“After you have taken possession of the land that the Lord your God is going to give you and have settled there, then you will decide you need a king like all the nations round you. ¹⁵Make sure that the man you choose to be king is the one whom the Lord has chosen. He must be one of your own people; do not make a foreigner your king. ¹⁶^*The king is not to have a large number of horses for his army, and he is not to send people to Egypt to buy horses,^o because the Lord has said that his people are never to return there. ¹⁷^*The king is not to have many wives, because this would make him turn away from the Lord; and he is not to make himself rich with silver and gold. ¹⁸When he becomes king, he is to have a copy of the book of God’s laws and teachings made from the original copy kept by the levitical priests. ¹⁹He is to keep this book near him and read from it all his life, so that he will learn to honour the Lord and to obey faithfully everything that is commanded in it. ²⁰This will keep him from thinking that he is better than his fellow-Israelites and from disobeying the Lord’s commands in any way. Then he will reign for many years, and his descendants will rule Israel for many generations.

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Footnotes

oto buy horses; or in exchange for horses.

Cross references

*17.14: 1 S 8:5
*17.16: 1 K 10:28; 2 Ch 1:16; 9:28
*17.17 a: 1 K 11:1–8 17.17 b: 1 K 10:14–22, 27; 2 Ch 1:15; 9:27