God

you are to appoint over yourselves the king whom the LORD your God shall choose. Appoint a king from among your brothers; you are not to set over yourselves a foreigner who is not one of your brothers.

But the king must not acquire many horses for himself or send the people back to Egypt to acquire more horses, for the LORD has said, ‘You are never to go back that way again.’

It is to remain with him, and he is to read from it all the days of his life, so that he may learn to fear the LORD his God by carefully observing all the words of this instruction and these statutes.

The Levitical priests—indeed the whole tribe of Levi—shall have no portion or inheritance with Israel. They are to eat the offerings made by fire to the LORD; that is their inheritance.

Although they have no inheritance among their brothers, the LORD is their inheritance, as He promised them.

For the LORD your God has chosen Levi and his sons out of all your tribes to stand and minister in His name for all time.

Now if a Levite moves from any town of residence throughout Israel and comes in all earnestness to the place the LORD will choose,

then he shall serve in the name of the LORD his God like all his fellow Levites who stand there before the LORD.

When you enter the land that the LORD your God is giving you, do not imitate the detestable ways of the nations there.

For whoever does these things is detestable to the LORD. And because of these detestable things, the LORD your God is driving out the nations before you.

You must be blameless before the LORD your God.

Though these nations, which you will dispossess, listen to conjurers and diviners, the LORD your God has not permitted you to do so.

The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your brothers. You must listen to him.

This is what you asked of the LORD your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, “Let us not hear the voice of the LORD our God or see this great fire anymore, so that we will not die!”

Then the LORD said to me, “They have spoken well.

I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. I will put My words in his mouth, and he will tell them everything I command him.

And I will hold accountable anyone who does not listen to My words that the prophet speaks in My name.

But if any prophet dares to speak a message in My name that I have not commanded him to speak, or to speak in the name of other gods, that prophet must be put to death.”

You may ask in your heart, “How can we recognize a message that the LORD has not spoken?”

When a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD and the message does not come to pass or come true, that is a message the LORD has not spoken. The prophet has spoken presumptuously. Do not be afraid of him.

When the LORD your God has cut off the nations whose land He is giving you, and when you have driven them out and settled in their cities and houses,

then you are to set apart for yourselves three cities within the land that the LORD your God is giving you to possess.

You are to build roads for yourselves and divide into three regions the land that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, so that any manslayer can flee to these cities.

And if the LORD your God enlarges your territory, as He swore to your fathers, and gives you all the land He promised them,

and if you carefully keep all these commandments I am giving you today, loving the LORD your God and walking in His ways at all times, then you are to add three more cities to these three.