Deuteronomy 18–21

Privileges of Priests and Levites

¹⁸“The Levitical priests, the whole tribe of Levi, shall have no allotment or inheritance within Israel. They may eat the offerings by fire^q that are the Lord’s portion,^{r* 2}but they shall have no inheritance among the other members of the community; the Lord is their inheritance, as he promised them.

³“This shall be the priests’ due from the people, from those offering a sacrifice, whether an ox or a sheep: they shall give to the priest the shoulder, the two jowls, and the stomach.^{* 4}The first fruits of your grain, your wine, and your oil, as well as the first of the fleece of your sheep, you shall give him.^{* 5}For the Lord your God has chosen Levi^s out of all your tribes to stand and minister in the name of the Lord, him and his sons for all time.^*

⁶“If a Levite leaves any of your towns, from wherever he has been residing in Israel, and comes to the place that the Lord will choose (and he may come whenever he wishes), ⁷then he may minister in the name of the Lord his God, like all his fellow-Levites who stand to minister there before the Lord. ⁸They shall have equal portions to eat, even though they have income from the sale of family possessions.^t*

Child-Sacrifice, Divination, and Magic Prohibited

⁹“When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you, you must not learn to imitate the abhorrent practices of those nations.^{* 10}No one shall be found among you who makes a son or daughter pass through fire, or who practices divination, or is a soothsayer, or an augur, or a sorcerer,^{* 11}or one who casts spells, or who consults ghosts or spirits, or who seeks oracles from the dead. ¹²For whoever does these things is abhorrent to the Lord; it is because of such abhorrent practices that the Lord your God is driving them out before you.^{* 13}You must remain completely loyal to the Lord your God. ¹⁴Although these nations that you are about to dispossess do give heed to soothsayers and diviners, as for you, the Lord your God does not permit you to do so.

A New Prophet Like Moses

¹⁵“The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people; you shall heed such a prophet.^{u* 16}This is what you requested of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said, ‘Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God or see this great fire any more, lest I die.’^{* 17}Then the Lord replied to me, ‘They are right in what they have said.^{* 18}I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their own people; I will put my words in the mouth of the prophet,^v who shall speak to them everything that I command.^{* 19}Anyone who does not heed the words that the prophet^w shall speak in my name, I myself will hold accountable.^{* 20}But any prophet who presumes to speak in my name a word that I have not commanded the prophet to speak or who speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die.’^{* 21}You may say to yourself, ‘How can we recognize a word that the Lord has not spoken?’ ²²If a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord but the thing does not take place or prove true, it is a word that the Lord has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously; do not be frightened by it.^*

Laws concerning the Cities of Refuge

¹⁹“When the Lord your God has cut off the nations whose land the Lord your God is giving you and you have dispossessed them and settled in their towns and in their houses,^{* 2}you shall set apart three cities in the land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess.^{* 3}You shall calculate the distances^x and divide into three regions the land that the Lord your God gives you as a possession, so that any homicide can flee to one of them.

⁴“Now this is the case of a homicide who might flee there and live, that is, someone who has killed another person unintentionally when the two had not been at enmity before.^{* 5}Suppose someone goes into the forest with another to cut wood, and when one of them swings the ax to cut down a tree, the head slips from the handle and strikes the other person, who then dies; the killer may flee to one of these cities and live. ⁶But if the distance is too great, the avenger of blood in hot anger might pursue and overtake and put the killer to death, although a death sentence was not deserved, since the two had not been at enmity before.^{* 7}Therefore I command you: You shall set apart three cities.

⁸“If the Lord your God enlarges your territory, as he swore to your ancestors—and he will give you all the land that he promised your ancestors to give you, ⁹provided you diligently observe this entire commandment that I command you today, by loving the Lord your God and walking always in his ways—then you shall add three more cities to these three,^{* 10}so that the blood of an innocent person may not be shed in the land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, thereby bringing bloodguilt upon you.^*

¹¹“But if someone at enmity with another lies in wait and attacks and takes the life of that person and flees into one of these cities, ¹²then the elders of the killer’s city shall send to have the culprit taken from there and handed over to the avenger of blood to be put to death. ¹³Show no pity; you shall purge the guilt of innocent blood from Israel, so that it may go well with you.^*

Property Boundaries

¹⁴“You must not move your neighbor’s boundary marker, set up by former generations, on the property that will be allotted to you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess.^*

Law concerning Witnesses

¹⁵“A single witness shall not suffice to convict a person of any crime or wrongdoing in connection with any offense that may be committed. Only on the evidence of two or three witnesses shall a charge be sustained.^{* 16}If a malicious witness comes forward to accuse someone of wrongdoing,^{* 17}then both parties to the dispute shall appear before the Lord, before the priests and the judges who are in office in those days,^{* 18}and the judges shall make a thorough inquiry. If the witness is a false witness, having testified falsely against another, ¹⁹then you shall do to the false witness just as the false witness had meant to do to the other. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.^{* 20}The rest shall hear and be afraid, and a crime such as this shall never again be committed among you. ²¹Show no pity: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.^*

Rules of Warfare

²⁰“When you go out to war against your enemies and see horses and chariots, an army larger than your own, do not fear them, for the Lord your God is with you, who brought you up from the land of Egypt.^{* 2}Before you engage in battle, the priest shall come forward and speak to the troops ³and shall say to them, ‘Hear, O Israel! Today you are drawing near to do battle against your enemies. Do not lose heart or be afraid or panic or be in dread of them,^{* 4}for it is the Lord your God who goes with you, to fight for you against your enemies, to give you victory.’^{* 5}Then the officers shall address the troops, saying, ‘Has anyone built a new house but not dedicated it? He should go back to his house, lest he die in the battle and another dedicate it. ⁶Has anyone planted a vineyard but not yet enjoyed its fruit? He should go back to his house, lest he die in the battle and another be first to enjoy its fruit.^{* 7}Has anyone become engaged to a woman but not yet married her? He should go back to his house, lest he die in the battle and another marry her.’^{* 8}The officers shall continue to address the troops, saying, ‘Is anyone afraid or disheartened? He should go back to his house, or he might cause the heart of his comrades to melt like his own.’^{* 9}When the officers have finished addressing the troops, then the commanders shall take charge of them.

¹⁰“When you draw near to a town to fight against it, offer it terms of peace.^{* 11}If it accepts your terms of peace and surrenders to you, then all the people in it shall serve you at forced labor. ¹²But if it does not accept your terms of peace and makes war against you, then you shall besiege it, ¹³and when the Lord your God gives it into your hand, you shall put all its males to the sword. ¹⁴You may, however, take as your plunder the women, the children, livestock, and everything else in the town, all its spoil. You may enjoy the spoil of your enemies, which the Lord your God has given you.^{* 15}Thus you shall treat all the towns that are very far from you, which are not towns of these nations here. ¹⁶But as for the towns of these peoples that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, you must not let anything that breathes remain alive.^{* 17}Indeed, you shall annihilate them—the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites—just as the Lord your God has commanded, ¹⁸so that they may not teach you to do all the abhorrent things that they do for their gods and you thus sin against the Lord your God.^*

¹⁹“If you besiege a town for a long time, making war against it in order to take it, you must not destroy its trees by wielding an ax against them. Although you may take food from them, you must not cut them down. Are trees in the field human beings that they should come under siege from you? ²⁰You may destroy only the trees that you know do not produce food; you may cut them down for use in building siegeworks against the town that makes war with you, until it falls.

Law concerning Murder by Persons Unknown

²¹“If, in the land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess, a body is found lying in open country, and it is not known who struck the person down,^{* 2}then your elders and your judges shall come out to measure the distances to the towns that are near the body. ³The elders of the town nearest the body shall take a heifer that has never been worked, one that has not pulled in the yoke; ⁴the elders of that town shall bring the heifer down to a wadi with running water,…