The Wilderness Years

"You are to keep the festival of Sukkot for seven days after you have gathered the produce of your threshing-floor and winepress.

Rejoice at your festival - you, your sons and daughters, your male and female slaves, the L'vi'im, and the foreigners, orphans and widows living among you.

Seven days you are to keep the festival for ADONAI your God in the place ADONAI your God will choose, because ADONAI your God will bless you in all your crops and in all your work, so you are to be full of joy!

"Three times a year all your men are to appear in the presence of ADONAI your God in the place which he will choose - at the festival of matzah, at the festival of Shavu'ot and at the festival of Sukkot. They are not to show up before ADONAI empty-handed,

but every man is to give what he can, in accordance with the blessing ADONAI your God has given you.

"You are to appoint judges and officers for all your gates [in the cities] ADONAI your God is giving you, tribe by tribe; and they are to judge the people with righteous judgment.

You are not to distort justice or show favoritism, and you are not to accept a bribe, for a gift blinds the eyes of the wise and twists the words of even the upright.

Justice, only justice, you must pursue; so that you will live and inherit the land ADONAI your God is giving you.

"You are not to plant any sort of tree as a sacred pole beside the altar of ADONAI your God that you will make for yourselves.

Likewise, do not set up a standing-stone; ADONAI your God hates such things.

"You are not to sacrifice to ADONAI your God a cow or sheep that has a defect or anything wrong with it; that would be an abomination to ADONAI your God.

"If there is found among you, within any of your gates [in any city] that ADONAI your God gives you, a man or woman who does what ADONAI your God sees as wicked, transgressing his covenant

by going and serving other gods and worshipping them, the sun, the moon, or anything in the sky - something I have forbidden -

and it is told to you, or you hear about it; then you are to investigate the matter diligently. If it is true, if it is confirmed that such detestable things are being done in Isra'el;

then you are to bring the man or woman who has done this wicked thing to your city gates, and stone that man or woman to death.

The death sentence is to be carried out only if there was testimony from two or three witnesses; he may not be sentenced to death on the testimony of only one witness.

The witnesses are to be the first to stone him to death; afterwards, all the people are to stone him. Thus you will put an end to this wickedness among you.

"If a case comes before you at your city gate which is too difficult for you to judge, concerning bloodshed, civil suit, personal injury or any other controversial issue; you are to get up, go to the place which ADONAI your God will choose,

and appear before the cohanim, who are L'vi'im, and the judge in office at the time. Seek their opinion, and they will render a verdict for you.

You will then act according to what they have told you there in that place which ADONAI will choose; you are to take care to act according to all their instructions.

In accordance with the Torah they teach you, you are to carry out the judgment they render, not turning aside to the right or the left from the verdict they declare to you.

Anyone presumptuous enough not to pay attention to the cohen appointed there to serve ADONAI your God or to the judge - that person must die. Thus you will exterminate such wickedness from Isra'el -

all the people will hear about it and be afraid to continue acting presumptuously.

"When you have entered the land ADONAI your God is giving you, have taken possession of it and are living there, you may say, 'I want to have a king over me, like all the other nations around me.'

In that event, you must appoint as king the one whom ADONAI your God will choose. He must be one of your kinsmen, this king you appoint over you - you are forbidden to appoint a foreigner over you who is not your kinsman.