Deuteronomy 17:8-20

8“1If any case is too difficult for you to decide, between 2one kind of homicide or another, between 3one kind of lawsuit or another, and between 4one kind of assault or another, being cases of dispute in your 5courts, then you shall arise and go up to 6the place which the Lord your God chooses. 9So you shall come to 7the Levitical priest or the judge who is in office in those days, and you shall inquire of them and they will declare to you the verdict in the case. 10You shall do according to the 8terms of the verdict which they declare to you from that place which the Lord chooses; and you shall be careful to observe according to all that they teach you. 119According to the 10terms of the law which they teach you, and according to the verdict which they tell you, you shall do; you shall not turn aside from the word which they declare to you, to the right or the left. 12The man who acts 11presumptuously by not listening to the priest who stands there to serve the Lord your God, nor to the judge, that man shall die; thus you shall purge the evil from Israel. 13Then all the people will hear and be afraid, and will not act 12presumptuously again.

14“When you enter the land which the Lord your God gives you, and you 13possess it and live in it, and you say, ‘14I will set a king over me like all the nations who are around me,’ 15you shall surely set a king over you whom the Lord your God chooses, one 15from among your 16countrymen you shall set as king over yourselves; you may not put a foreigner over yourselves who is not your 17countryman. 1618Moreover, he shall not multiply horses for himself, nor shall he 19cause the people to return to Egypt to multiply horses, since 20the Lord has said to you, ‘You shall never again return that way.’ 1721He shall not multiply wives for himself, 22or else his heart will turn away; nor shall he greatly increase silver and gold for himself.

18“Now it shall come about when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself a copy of this law on a scroll 2324in the presence of the Levitical priests. 19It shall be with him and he shall read it 25all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, 26by carefully observing all the words of this law and these statutes, 20that his heart may not be lifted up above his 27countrymen 28and that he may not turn aside from the commandment, to the right or the left, so that he and his sons may continue long in his kingdom in the midst of Israel.