The King

14 When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you and have taken possessionf of it and settled in it,g and you say, “Let us set a king over us like all the nations around us,”h 15 be sure to appointi over you a king the Lord your God chooses. He must be from among your fellow Israelites.j Do not place a foreigner over you, one who is not an Israelite. 16 The king, moreover, must not acquire great numbers of horsesk for himselfl or make the people return to Egyptm to get more of them,n for the Lord has told you, “You are not to go back that way again.”o 17 He must not take many wives,p or his heart will be led astray.q He must not accumulater large amounts of silver and gold.s

18 When he takes the thronet of his kingdom, he is to writeu for himself on a scroll a copyv 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 lifew so that he may learn to revere the Lord his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decreesx 20 and not consider himself better than his fellow Israelites and turn from the lawy to the right or to the left.z Then he and his descendants will reign a long time over his kingdom in Israel.a