Deuteronomy 16–19

The Passover

16Celebrate the Passover of the Lord your God during the month of Abib, because it was during Abib that he brought you out of Egypt at night. ²As the sacrifice for the Passover to the Lord your God, offer an animal from your flock or herd at the place the Lord will choose to be worshiped. ³Do not eat it with bread made with yeast. But for seven days eat bread made without yeast, the bread of suffering, because you left Egypt in a hurry. So all your life you will remember the time you left Egypt. ⁴There must be no yeast anywhere in your land for seven days. Offer the sacrifice on the evening of the first day, and eat all the meat before morning; do not leave it overnight.

⁵Do not offer the Passover sacrifice in just any town the Lord your God gives you, ⁶but offer it in the place he will choose to be worshiped. Offer it in the evening as the sun goes down, which is when you left Egypt. ⁷Roast the meat and eat it at the place the Lord your God will choose. The next morning go back to your tents. ⁸Eat bread made without yeast for six days. On the seventh day have a special meeting for the Lord your God, and do not work that day.

The Feast of Weeks

⁹Count seven weeks from the time you begin to harvest the grain, ¹⁰and then celebrate the Feast of Weeks for the Lord your God. Bring an offering as a special gift to him, giving to him just as he has blessed you. ¹¹Rejoice before the Lord your God at the place he will choose to be worshiped. Everybody should rejoice: you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, the Levites in your town, the strangers, orphans, and widows living among you. ¹²Remember that you were slaves in Egypt, and carefully obey all these laws.

The Feast of Shelters

¹³Celebrate the Feast of Shelters for seven days, after you have gathered your harvest from the threshing floor and winepress. ¹⁴Everybody should rejoice at your Feast: you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, the Levites, strangers, orphans, and widows who live in your towns. ¹⁵Celebrate the Feast to the Lord your God for seven days at the place he will choose, because the Lord your God will bless all your harvest and all the work you do, and you will be completely happy.

¹⁶All your men must come before the Lord three times a year to the place he will choose. They must come at these times: the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of Weeks, and the Feast of Shelters. No man should come before the Lord without a gift. ¹⁷Each of you must bring a gift that will show how much the Lord your God has blessed you.

Judges for the People

¹⁸Appoint judges and officers for your tribes in every town the Lord your God is giving you; they must judge the people fairly. ¹⁹Do not judge unfairly or take sides. Do not let people pay you to make wrong decisions, because that kind of payment makes wise people seem blind, and it changes the words of good people. ²⁰Always do what is right so that you will live and always have the land the Lord your God is giving you.

God Hates Idols

²¹Do not set up a wooden Asherah idol next to the altar you build for the Lord your God, ²²and do not set up holy stone pillars. The Lord your God hates them.

17If an ox or sheep has something wrong with it, do not offer it as a sacrifice to the Lord your God. He would hate that.

²A man or woman in one of the towns the Lord gave you might be found doing something evil and breaking the Agreement. ³That person may have served other gods and bowed down to them or to the sun or moon or stars of the sky, which I have commanded should not be done. ⁴If someone has told you about it, you must look into the matter carefully. If it is true that such a hateful thing has happened in Israel, ⁵take the man or woman who has done the evil thing to the city gates and throw stones at that person until he dies. ⁶There must be two or three witnesses that it is true before the person is put to death; if there is only one witness, the person should not be put to death. ⁷The witnesses must be the first to throw stones at the person, and then everyone else will follow. You must get rid of the evil among you.

Courts of Law

⁸Some cases that come before you, such as murder, quarreling, or attack, may be too difficult to judge. Take these cases to the place the Lord your God will choose. ⁹Go to the priests who are Levites and to the judge who is on duty at that time. Ask them about the case, and they will decide. ¹⁰You must follow the decision they give you at the place the Lord your God will choose. Be careful to do everything they tell you. ¹¹Follow the teachings they give you, and do whatever they decide, exactly as they tell you. ¹²The person who does not show respect for the judge or priest who is there serving the Lord your God must be put to death. You must get rid of that evil from Israel. ¹³Then everyone will hear about this and will be afraid, and they will not show disrespect anymore.

Choosing a King

¹⁴When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, taking it as your own and living in it, you will say, “Let’s appoint a king over us like the nations all around us.” ¹⁵Be sure to appoint over you the king the Lord your God chooses. He must be one of your own people. Do not appoint as your king a foreigner who is not a fellow Israelite. ¹⁶The king must not have too many horses for himself, and he must not send people to Egypt to get more horses, because the Lord has told you, “Don’t return that way again.” ¹⁷The king must not have many wives, or his heart will be led away from God. He must not have too much silver and gold.

¹⁸When he becomes king, he should write a copy of the teachings on a scroll for himself, a copy taken from the priests and Levites. ¹⁹He should keep it with him all the time and read from it every day of his life. Then he will learn to respect the Lord his God, and he will obey all the teachings and commands. ²⁰He should not think he is better than his fellow Israelites, and he must not stop obeying the law in any way so that he and his descendants may rule the kingdom for a long time.

Shares for Priests and Levites

18The priests are from the tribe of Levi, and that tribe will not receive a share of the land with the Israelites. They will eat the offerings made to the Lord by fire, which is their share. ²They will not inherit any of the land like their brothers, but they will inherit the Lord himself, as he has promised them.

³When you offer a bull or sheep as a sacrifice, you must share with the priests, giving them the shoulder, the cheeks, and the inner organs. ⁴Give them the first of your grain, new wine, and oil, as well as the first wool you cut from your sheep. ⁵The Lord your God has chosen the priests and their descendants out of all your tribes to stand and serve the Lord always.

⁶If a Levite moves from one of your towns anywhere in Israel where he lives and comes to the place the Lord will choose, because he wants to serve the Lord there, ⁷he may serve the Lord his God. He will be like his fellow Levites who serve there before the Lord. ⁸They all will have an equal share of the food. That is separate from what he has received from the sale of family possessions.

Do Not Follow Other Nations

⁹When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, don’t learn to do the hateful things the other nations do. ¹⁰Don’t let anyone among you offer a son or daughter as a sacrifice in the fire. Don’t let anyone use magic or witchcraft, or try to explain the meaning of signs. ¹¹Don’t let anyone try to control others with magic, and don’t let them be mediums or try to talk with the spirits of dead people. ¹²The Lord hates anyone who does these things. Because the other nations do these things, the Lord your God will force them out of the land ahead of you. ¹³But you must be innocent in the presence of the Lord your God.

The Lord’s Special Prophet

¹⁴The nations you will force out listen to people who use magic and witchcraft, but the Lord your God will not let you do those things. ¹⁵The Lord your God will give you a prophet like me, who is one of your own people. Listen to him. ¹⁶This is what you asked the Lord your God to do when you were gathered at Mount Sinai. You said, “Don’t make us listen to the voice of the Lord our God again, and don’t make us look at this terrible fire anymore, or we will die.”

¹⁷So the Lord said to me, “What they have said is good. ¹⁸So I will give them a prophet like you, who is one of their own people. I will tell him what to say, and he will tell them everything I command. ¹⁹This prophet will speak for me; anyone who does not listen when he speaks will answer to me. ²⁰But if a prophet says something I did not tell him to say as though he were speaking for me, or if a prophet speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet must be killed.”

²¹You might be thinking, “How can we know if a message is not from the Lord?” ²²If what a prophet says in the name of the Lord does not happen, it is not the Lord’s message. That prophet was speaking his own ideas. Don’t be afraid of him.

Cities of Safety

19When the Lord your God gives you land that belongs to the other nations, nations that he will destroy, you will force them out and live in their cities and houses. ²Then choose three cities in the middle of the land the Lord your God is giving you as your own. ³Build roads to these cities, and divide the land the Lord is giving you into three parts so that someone who kills another person may run to these cities.

⁴This is the rule for someone who kills another person and runs to one of these cities in order to save his life. But the person must have killed a neighbor without meaning to, not out of hatred. ⁵For example, suppose someone goes into the forest with a neighbor to cut wood and swings an ax to cut down a tree. If the ax head flies off the handle, hitting and killing the neighbor, the one who killed him may run to one of these cities to save his life. ⁶Otherwise, the…