1 You shall not sacrifice to the LORD your God {YHWH Eloheikha, Holiness Upholder} an ox or a sheep that has any defect {mum: physical blemish}, for that is an abomination to the LORD your God.
2 If there is found among you in one of your gates which the LORD your God {YHWH Eloheikha, Covenant Lawgiver} gives to you, a man or a woman who does evil {ra: moral wrongdoing} in the eyes of the LORD your God by transgressing His covenant.
3 And he went and served other gods and bowed down to them or to the sun or to the moon or to all the host of the heavens {tseva hashamayim: celestial array}, which I {YHWH, Sovereign Lawgiver} have not commanded.
4 And it has been told to you, and you have heard, and you have investigated {darashta: careful inquiry}, and behold, if the matter is true and established {nakhon: legal certainty}, that this abomination has been done in Israel.
5 And you shall bring out that man or that woman who has done this evil thing {hara: wicked act} to your gates, and you shall stone them with stones {avanim: solid rocks}, and they shall die.
6 On the word {pi: spoken declaration} of two witnesses or three witnesses, the one to die {hamet: sentenced to death} shall be executed; no one shall be put to death on the word of only one witness.
7 The hand of the witnesses shall be the first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people; so you shall purge the evil {hara: moral corruption} from your midst {miqirbekha: inner community}.
8 If a case is too difficult for you to judge—between blood and blood, between case and case, or between affliction and affliction—matters of dispute within your gates, then you shall arise and go up to the place which the LORD your God {YHWH Eloheikha, Supreme Lawgiver} will choose {bachar: select with purpose}.
9 And you shall go to the priests {hakohanim: sacred ministers} of the Levites and to the judge who will be in office in those days, and you shall inquire of them, and they will declare to you the decision {hamishpat: binding legal verdict} of the judgment.
10 And you shall act according to the command {al-pi: mouth authority} that they declare to you from the place that the LORD {YHWH, Divine Selector} chooses, and you shall be careful to do everything that they instruct you.
11 According to the instruction {torah: divine teaching} which they teach you, and according to the judgment {mishpat: legal decision} which they declare to you, you shall act. You shall not turn aside from the word that they declare to you, either to the right or to the left.
12 And the man who acts in presumption, not listening to the priest who stands there to minister to the LORD your God {YHWH Eloheikha, Covenant Judge} or to the judge, that man shall die. And you shall remove the evil {ra: moral corruption} from Israel.
13 Then the entire assembly shall hear and fear {yiraʾû: reverent awe}, and they shall not act presumptuously {yezîḏûn: act defiantly} again.
14 When you enter the land that the LORD your God {YHWH Eloheikha, Covenant Giver} is giving you, and you take possession of it and live in it, and you say, “Let me appoint a king over me like all the nations {goyim: peoples or ethnic groups} around me.”
15 You shall certainly appoint as king over you the one whom the LORD your God {YHWH Eloheikha, Divine Sovereign} chooses. From among your brothers you shall appoint a king; you may not appoint a foreigner {nokhri: covenant outsider} over you, for he is not your brother.
16 Only he shall not multiply horses {susim: military strength} for himself, nor shall he cause the people to return to Egypt to multiply horses, for the LORD {YHWH, Covenant Lawgiver} has said to you, “You shall not return on this way again.”
17 And he shall not increase the number of his wives so that his heart {levavo: inner disposition} does not depart; and he shall not amass silver and gold for himself in abundance {meod: extreme amount}.
18 And it shall be, when he sits upon the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write for himself a copy of this law {torah: teaching and instruction} in a book, taken from the scroll that is before the priests, the Levites {leviyim: ordained ministers}.
19 And it shall remain with him, and he shall read from it all the days of his life, so that he may learn to fear {yir’ah: reverence} the LORD his God {YHWH Elohav, Personal Covenant God}, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes, and to do them.
20 In order that his heart not be lifted above his brothers, and that he not deviate from the commandment {mitzvah: divine instruction} to the right or to the left, thereby extending his days over his kingdom—he and his sons—within Israel {Yisrael: covenant nation}.