Deuteronomy
Chapter 17
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Leningrad Codex, through the Open Scriptures Westminster Leningrad Codex. The written consonants are printed. A Masoretic reading is footnoted when it differs. No Dead Sea reading was substituted unless it was read from a fragment. The Samaritan Pentateuch and the Greek, Syriac, and Latin versions are witnesses, not the default.
A dotted word is a harder one. Point at it, or tap it, for a short definition.
1You shall not sacrifice to God’s own name. The Hebrew writes YHWH. See the glossary. your God an ox or a sheep in which there is a defect, any bad thing, for it is an Something God hates and will not accept. of God’s own name. The Hebrew writes YHWH. See the glossary. your God.
2If there is found among you, in one of your gates that God’s own name. The Hebrew writes YHWH. See the glossary. your God is giving you, a man or a woman who does what is bad in the eyes of God’s own name. The Hebrew writes YHWH. See the glossary. your God, to cross his A solemn agreement that binds God and people.,
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Avar berit is to cross his covenant, to step over it.
3and goes and serves other gods and bows down to them, or to the sun or to the moon or to any of the army of the heavens, which I did not command,
4and it is told to you and you hear it, and you inquire well, and Look, the thing is true, the matter is fixed, this Something God hates and will not accept. has been done in Israel,
5then you shall bring out that man or that woman who did this bad thing to your gates, the man or the woman, and you shall stone them with stones, and they shall die.
6On the mouth of two witnesses, or of three witnesses, the one who is to die shall be put to death. He shall not be put to death on the mouth of one witness.
7The hand of the witnesses shall be against him first, to put him to death, and the hand of all the people afterward. You shall burn out the evil from your midst.
8If a matter for judgment is too hard for you, between blood and blood, between case and case, and between mark and mark, matters of disputes in your gates, you shall rise and go up to the place that God’s own name. The Hebrew writes YHWH. See the glossary. your God chooses,
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Nega is a mark, the same word as the skin mark in Leviticus. The line sets blood beside blood, case beside case, and mark beside mark.
9and you shall come to the priests, the Levites, and to the judge who will be in those days, and you shall inquire, and they shall tell you the word of the judgment.
10You shall act on the mouth of the word that they tell you from that place that God’s own name. The Hebrew writes YHWH. See the glossary. chooses, and you shall keep to do according to all that they direct you.
11On the mouth of the instruction that they direct you, and on the judgment that they say to you, you shall act. You shall not turn aside from the word that they tell you, right or left.
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Torah is instruction.
12The man who acts in presumption, so as not to listen to the priest who stands there to serve God’s own name. The Hebrew writes YHWH. See the glossary. your God, or to the judge, that man shall die. You shall burn out the evil from Israel.
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Be-zadon is in presumption, a willful act. It is not the same phrase as a high hand.
13All the people shall hear and fear, and they shall not act in presumption anymore.
14When you come to the land that God’s own name. The Hebrew writes YHWH. See the glossary. your God is giving you, and you take possession of it and live in it, and you say, I will set a king over me like all the nations that are around me,
15you shall set, set over you a king whom God’s own name. The Hebrew writes YHWH. See the glossary. your God chooses. From among your brothers you shall set a king over you. You may not put over you a foreign man who is not your brother.
16Only, he shall not multiply horses for himself, and he shall not send the people back to Egypt in order to multiply horses, for God’s own name. The Hebrew writes YHWH. See the glossary. has said to you, You shall not do it again, to go back this way.
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Lo tosifun is you shall not add. It is the same idiom as doing a thing again.
17He shall not multiply wives for himself, so that his heart does not turn aside, and silver and gold he shall not multiply for himself, a great amount.
18And it shall be, when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write for himself a copy of this instruction on a scroll, from before the priests, the Levites.
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Mishneh ha-torah is a second copy of this instruction. The line does not name the book.
19It shall be with him, and he shall read in it all the days of his life, so that he learns to fear God’s own name. The Hebrew writes YHWH. See the glossary. his God, to keep all the words of this instruction and these Rules that are meant to last., to do them,
20so that his heart is not high above his brothers, and so that he does not turn aside from the command, right or left, so that he lengthens his days over his kingdom, he and his sons, in the midst of Israel.