Genesis to Revelation Bible Reading Plan
February 21
Deuteronomy 17-19
Chapter 17
Administration of Justice
1 “You shall not sacrifice to the Lord your God an ox or a sheep which
has a blemish or any defect, for that is a detestable thing to the Lord your
God.
2 “If there is found in your midst, in any of your towns, which the
Lord your God is giving you, a man or a woman who does what is evil in the sight
of the Lord your God, by transgressing His covenant,
3 and has gone and served other gods and worshiped them, or the sun or the
moon or any of the heavenly host, which I have not commanded,
4 and if it is told you and you have heard of it, then you shall inquire thoroughly.
Behold, if it is true and the thing certain that this detestable thing has been
done in Israel,
5 then you shall bring out that man or that woman who has done this evil deed
to your gates, that is, the man or the woman, and you shall stone them to death.
6 “On the evidence of two witnesses or three witnesses, he who is to
die shall be put to death; he shall not be put to death on the evidence of
one witness.
7 “The hand of the witnesses shall be first against him to put him to
death, and afterward the hand of all the people. So you shall purge the evil
from your midst.
8 “If any case is too difficult for you to decide, between one kind
of homicide or another, between one kind of lawsuit or another, and between
one kind of assault or another, being cases of dispute in your courts, then
you shall arise and go up to the place which the Lord your God chooses.
9 “So you shall come to the 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.
10 “You shall do according to the terms 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.
11 “According to the terms 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.
12 “The man who acts presumptuously 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.
13 “Then all the people will hear and be afraid, and will not act presumptuously
again.
14 “When you enter the land which the Lord your God gives you, and you
possess it and live in it, and you say, ‘I will set a king over me
like all the nations who are around me,’
15 you shall surely set a king over you whom the Lord your God chooses, one from
among your countrymen you shall set as king over yourselves; you may not put
a foreigner over yourselves who is not your countryman.
16 “Moreover, he shall not multiply horses for himself, nor shall he
cause the people to return to Egypt to multiply horses, since the Lord has
said to you, ‘You shall never again return that way.’
17 “He shall not multiply wives for himself, or 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 in the presence
of the Levitical priests.
19 “It shall be with him and he shall read it all the days of his life,
that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, by carefully observing all the
words of this law and these statutes,
20 that his heart may not be lifted up above his countrymen and 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.
Chapter 18
Portion of the Levites
1 “The Levitical priests, the whole tribe of Levi, shall have no portion
or inheritance with Israel; they shall eat the Lord’s offerings by fire
and His portion.
2 “They shall have no inheritance among their countrymen; the Lord
is their inheritance, as He promised them.
3 “Now this shall be the priests’ due from the people, from those
who offer a sacrifice, either an ox or a sheep, of which they shall give to the
priest the shoulder and the two cheeks and the stomach.
4 “You shall give him the first fruits of your grain, your new wine,
and your oil, and the first shearing of your sheep.
5 “For the Lord your God has chosen him and his sons from all your tribes,
to stand and serve in the name of the Lord forever.
6 “Now if a Levite comes from any of your towns throughout Israel where
he resides, and comes whenever he desires to the place which the Lord chooses,
7 then he shall serve in the name of the Lord his God, like all his fellow
Levites who stand there before the Lord.
8 “They shall eat equal portions, except what they receive from the
sale of their fathers’ estates.
Spiritism Forbidden
9 “When you enter the land which the Lord your God gives you, you shall
not learn to imitate the detestable things of those nations.
10 “There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his
daughter pass through the fire, one who uses divination, one who practices
witchcraft, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer,
11 or one who casts a spell, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls
up the dead.
12 “For whoever does these things is detestable to the Lord; and because
of these detestable things the Lord your God will drive them out before you.
13 “You shall be blameless before the Lord your God.
14 “For those nations, which you shall dispossess, listen to those who
practice witchcraft and to diviners, but as for you, the Lord your God has
not allowed you to do so.
15 “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among
you, from your countrymen, you shall listen to him.
16 “This is according to all that you asked of the Lord your God in Horeb
on the day of the assembly, saying, ‘Let me not hear again the voice of
the Lord my God, let me not see this great fire anymore, or I will die.’
17 “The Lord said to me, ‘They have spoken well.
18 ‘I will raise up a prophet from among their countrymen like you, and
I will put My words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command
him.
19 ‘It shall come about that whoever will not listen to My words which
he shall speak in My name, I Myself will require it of him.
20 ‘But the prophet who speaks a word presumptuously in My name which
I have not commanded him to speak, or which he speaks in the name of other
gods, that prophet shall die.’
21 “You may say in your heart, ‘How will we know the word which
the Lord has not spoken?’
22 “When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing does
not come about or come true, that is the thing which the Lord has not spoken.
The prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you shall not be afraid of him.
Chapter
19
Cities of Refuge
1 “When the Lord your God cuts off the nations, whose land the Lord your
God gives you, and you dispossess them and settle in their cities and in their
houses,
2 you shall set aside three cities for yourself in the midst of your land,
which the Lord your God gives you to possess.
3 “You shall prepare the roads for yourself, and divide into three parts
the territory of your land which the Lord your God will give you as a possession,
so that any manslayer may flee there.
4 “Now this is the case of the manslayer who may flee there and live:
when he kills his friend unintentionally, not hating him previously—
5 as when a man goes into the forest with his friend to cut wood, and his hand
swings the axe to cut down the tree, and the iron head slips off the handle
and strikes his friend so that he dies—he may flee to one of these cities
and live;
6 otherwise the avenger of blood might pursue the manslayer in the heat of
his anger, and overtake him, because the way is long, and take his life,
though he was not deserving of death, since he had not hated him previously.
7 “Therefore, I command you, saying, ‘You shall set aside three cities
for yourself.’
8 “If the Lord your God enlarges your territory, just as He has sworn
to your fathers, and gives you all the land which He promised to give your
fathers—
9 if you carefully observe all this commandment which I command you today,
to love the Lord your God, and to walk in His ways always—then you
shall add three more cities for yourself, besides these three.
10 “So innocent blood will not be shed in the midst of your land which
the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance, and bloodguiltiness be on you.
11 “But if there is a man who hates his neighbor and lies in wait for
him and rises up against him and strikes him so that he dies, and he flees
to one of these cities,
12 then the elders of his city shall send and take him from there and deliver
him into the hand of the avenger of blood, that he may die.
13 “You shall not pity him, but you shall purge the blood of the
innocent from Israel, that it may go well with you.
Laws of Landmark and Testimony
14 “You shall not move your neighbor’s boundary mark, which the
ancestors have set, in your inheritance which you will inherit in the land that
the Lord your God gives you to possess.
15 “A single witness shall not rise up against a man on account of any
iniquity or any sin which he has committed; on the evidence of two or three
witnesses a matter shall be confirmed.
16 “If a malicious witness rises up against a man to accuse him of
wrongdoing,
17 then both the men who have the dispute shall stand before the Lord, before
the priests and the judges who will be in office in those days.
18 “The judges shall investigate thoroughly, and if the witness is a
false witness and he has accused his brother falsely,
19 then you shall do to him just as he had intended to do to his brother.
Thus you shall purge the evil from among you.
20 “The rest will hear and be afraid, and will never again do such an
evil thing among you.
21 “Thus you shall not show pity: life for life, eye for eye, tooth
for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.
"Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, © Copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation Used by permission." (www.Lockman.org)