Parsha Shoftim

(16,18) Judges and police officers you shall appoint for yourself in all of your cities that Adonoy, your God, is giving you for your tribes; who will judge the people righteous justice.

(16,19) Do not pervert justice; do not display favoritism; and do not accept bribery, for bribery blinds the eyes of the wise and distorts words that are just.

(16,20) Pursue absolute justice so that you may live and inherit the land that Adonoy, your God, is giving you.

(16,21) Do not plant an Asherah for yourself [or] any tree near the altar of Adonoy, your God, that you will make for yourself.

(16,22) And do not erect for yourself a monument that Adonoy, your God, detests.

(17,1) Do not sacrifice to Adonoy, your God, an ox or a lamb that has a blemish, any bad thing; for it is abominated by Adonoy, your God.

(17,2) If there is found among you, in one of your cities that Adonoy, your God, is giving you, a man or a woman who does what is evil in the eyes of Adonoy, your God, by violating His covenant.

(17,3) He goes and serves other gods and bows to them—whether to the sun or to the moon or to any of the host of heaven that I did not command.

(17,4) When you are told and you understand, you are to inquire thoroughly. If in fact the report is authenticated and accurate—this abomination was committed within Yisroel.

(17,5) You are to take out that man or that woman who did this evil thing to your city—the man or the woman—and you are to stone them with stones so that they die.

(17,6) By the speech of two witnesses or three witnesses is the guilty one to be executed; he is not to be executed by the oral testimonoy of one witness.

(17,7) Let the hand of the witnesses be against him first to execute him, and the hand of the entire people afterward; and you will eliminate the evil from within you.

(17,8) If a matter of law is too abstruse for you—between blood and blood, between decision and decision, or between leprosy and leprosy, matters under dispute in your city; you shall rise and ascend to the place that Adonoy, your God, will have chosen.

(17,9) You are to come before the kohanim-the Levites and the judge officiating during those days; you will inquire and they will tell you the legal decision.

(17,10) You are to act according to the word that they tell you from that place that Adonoy will have chosen; and you are to be careful to fulfill exactly as they instruct you.

(17,11) In accord with the Torah that they instruct you and upon the law that they state to you, are you to act; do not deviate from the word they tell you, neither right or left.

(17,12) But the man who acts deliberately to not heed the kohein who stands to serve there Adonoy, your God, or the judge; that man is to be executed and you will eliminate the evil from Yisroel.

(17,13) Let all the people hear and fear, and not sin deliberately again.

(17,14) When you arrive in the land that Adonoy, your God, is giving you and inherit it and live in it, and you say, ‘‘Let me appoint over me a king like all the nations around me;’’

(17,15) Appoint are you to appoint over yourself a king whom Adonoy, your God, will choose. From among your brothers are you to appoint over yourself a king; you may not place over yourself a foreigner who is not your brother.

(17,16) However, he must not aquire an abundance of horses for himself so that he will not return the people to Egypt in order to aquire an abundance of horses, because Adonoy told you, ‘‘You are not to proceed to return along this route again.’’

(17,17) And he is not to aquire an abundance of wives for himself so that his heart will not veer; and silver and gold he may not accumulate for himself in great abundance.

(17,18) It shall be, that when he occupies the throne of his kingdom, he must write for himself a duplicate of this Torah in a scroll form [the scroll] before the kohanim—the Levites.

(17,19) It is to accompany him and he is to read in it all the days of his life, in order that he learn to fear Adonoy, his God, to guard every word of this Torah and these statutes to fulfill them;

(17,20) That his pride not increase over his brothers and he does not stray from the commandment right or left; so that the days of his reign are lengthy over his kingdom, he and his sons within Yisroel.

(18,1) They will not have—the kohanim, the Levites, the entire tribe of Levi—a portion or an inheritance with Yisroel; Adonoy’s fire-offerings and His inheritance will they eat.

(18,2) But he will have no territory among his brothers; Adonoy is his territory, as He said to him.

(18,3) And this will be the stipend of the kohanim from the people from the slaughterers of [permitted] meat, whether an ox or a sheep; he will give the kohein the foreleg and the jaw and the [fourth] stomach.

(18,4) The first portion of your grain, your wine, and your olive oil, and the first of the shearing of your sheep are you to give him.

(18,5) For him did Adonoy, your God, choose from all your tribes to stand and perform the service in the name of Adonoy, he and his sons for all time.

(18,6) If a Levite should come from one of your cities throughout Yisroel where he sojourns, coming will all his soul’s desire to the place that Adonoy chooses.

(18,7) He shall perform the service in the name of Adonoy, his God, like all his brother Levites who stand there in Adonoy’s Presence.

(18,8) They shall eat equal portions, except for what the families sold [to one another].

(18,9) Because you are entering the land that Adonoy, your God, is giving you; do not learn to perpetrate the abominations of those nations.

(18,10) Let there not exist among you anyone who passes his son or daughter through fire, who practices the kosem-occult; who practices time-frame-occult or who divines portentuous events or a sorcerer.

(18,11) Or a snake charmer, or one who invokes the spirit of Ov or yidoni, or communicates with the dead.

(18,12) For Adonoy’s abomination is anyone perpetrating this and because of these abominations, Adonoy, your God, is expelling them from before you.

(18,13) Walk in perfect trust with Adonoy, your God.

(18,14) Although these nations whom you are inheriting heed augurers and sorcerers, but as to you—Adonoy, your God, has not given you their status.

(18,15) A prophet from your midst, of your brethren, like me, will Adonoy, your God, establish for you; heed him.

(18,16) Exactly as you requested from Adonoy, your God, at Choreiv, on the day of assembly, saying, ‘‘Let me not continue to hear the voice of Adonoy, my God, and this great fire let me not see any more as that I will not die.’’

(18,17) Adonoy said to me, ‘‘What they said is excellent.

(18,18) A prophet will I establish for them from among their brethren like you, and I will place My words in his mouth and he will tell them everything that I command him.

(18,19) Now, the man who does not heed My words that he speaks in My Name; I will demand from him.

(18,20) But the prophet who will malevolently make a statement in My Name, something that I did not instruct him to say, or which he says in the name of foreign gods, that prophet must die.

(18,21) If you should say to yourself, ‘‘How can we know [which is] the statement that Adonoy did not speak?’’

(18,22) Should the prophet speak in Adonoy’s Name, and the matter does not happen and is not fulfilled, that is the statement that Adonoy did not speak. The prophet spoke it malevolently; do not fear him.

(19,1) When Adonoy, your God, annihilates the nations whose land Adonoy, your God is giving you; and you inherit them and live in their cities and in their houses;

(19,2) Separate three cities for yourself, within your land that Adonoy, your God, is giving you to inherit.

(19,3) Ready the route for yourself and divide the borders of your land into three sections that Adonoy, your God, will allot you; this will serve for any murderer to flee there.

(19,4) And this is the matter of the murderer who may flee there to survive: whoever smites his peer without intent, and he had not been his enemy yesterday [or] the day before;

(19,5) And whoever comes with his peer into the woods to chop trees, and as his hand swung the axe downward to cut the wood the iron flew off the wooden handle and encounters his peer and he dies; he is to flee to one of these cities to survive.

(19,6) Lest the blood-redeemer pursue the murderer when his heart grows heated, and he catches up with him over the length of the road and he smite him dead when he has no death sentence because he had not been his enemy yesterday [or] the day before.

(19,7) Therefore am I commanding you the following: three cities shall you separate for yourself.

(19,8) And when Adonoy, your God, expands your boundary, in accordance with His oath to your forefathers, and He give you the entire land that He promised to give to your forefathers,

(19,9) When you will be guarding this entire mitzvah to fulfill it, that I am commanding you today, to love Adonoy, your God, and to go in His ways for all time; then you shall add three more cities to these three.

(19,10) And let innocent blood not be shed within your land that Adonoy, your God, is giving you as territory, [otherwise] you will bear liability for the blood.

(19,11) If there is a man who hates his neighbor, and will ambush him, arising against him and smiting him dead, and he will flee to one of these cities;

(19,12) The elders of his city will send for and take him from there, and will hand him over to the blood-redeemer, and he will be executed.

(19,13) Do not view him with compassion. You are to eliminate the [shedding of] innocent blood from Yisroel, and you will have it good.

(19,14) Do not move back the boundary of your neighbor that the first [settlers] determine in your territory that you will inherit in the land that Adonoy, your God, is giving you to inherit.

(19,15) One witness may not arise against a man about any sin or for any transgression or transgression that he transgresses; by the word of two witnesses or by the word of three witnesses let a matter be established.

(19,16) If false witnesses arise against a man and bear fallacious testimony against him;

(19,17) The two men shall stand, who are involved in the dispute, before Adonoy, before the kohanim and the judges who are in those days.

(19,18) When the judges shall investigate thoroughly and behold, the witness testified falsely, they testified falsely against their brother;

(19,19) You are to do to [each of] them as he conspired to do to his brother, and eliminate the evil from among you;

(19,20) And the remainder will hear and be fearful, and they will not repeat this evil thing among you.

(19,21) You are not to have compassion: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.

(20,1) When you go to war against your enemy, and you see horse and chariot, people who outnumber you; do not be afraid of them, for Adonoy, your God, is with you, He Who brought you up from the land of Egypt.

(20,2) Now, as you near the battle, the kohein shall approach and speak to the people.

(20,3) He will say to them, ‘‘Hear, Yisroel! You are setting out today to battle against your enemies. Do not be faint hearted; or intimidated and do not panic, and do not be crushed before them;

(20,4) Because Adonoy, your God, marches with you to do battle for you with your enemies to save you.’’

(20,5) The officers will address the people as follows, ‘‘Whichever man has built a new house and did not inaugurate it as a dwelling, let him go and return home lest he die in battle and another man will inaugurate it.

(20,6) And whichever man has planted a vineyard and did not redeem it[s fruit,] let him go and return home, lest he die in battle and another man redeem it.

(20,7) And whichever man has betrothed a woman and not married her, let him go and return home, lest he die in battle and another man marry her.’’

(20,8) The officers will further address the people and say. ‘‘Whoever is afraid or faint hearted, let him go and return home, and let him not destroy the resolve of his brothers like his own resolve.’’

(20,9) When the officers finish addressing the people; they will appoint army commanders at the head of the people.

(20,10) When you near a city to do battle against it, you are to offer it peace.

(20,11) Should it respond, ‘‘Peace!’’ and open for you, then all the people found in it will become your payers of tribute, and your servants.

(20,12) And if it does not settle for peace with you but engages in war against you, you shall lay siege to it.

(20,13) Adonoy, your God, will deliver it into your hand, and you will smite all its males by the sword.

(20,14) However, the women and the children, and the animals, and everything that will be in the city—all its booty—are you to plunder for yourself; you will eat the booty of your enemies that Adonoy, your God, gave you.

(20,15) So will you do to all the cities, that are very distant from you, that are not among the cities of these nations.

(20,16) However, from the cities of these peoples that Adonoy, your God, is giving you as inheritance, you are not to leave any person alive.

(20,17) Rather annihilate are you to annihilate them: the Chittites and the Emorites, the Canaanites and the Perizites, the Chivites and the Yevusites; as Adonoy, your God, commanded you.

(20,18) In order that they do not teach you to do any of their abominations that they did for their gods, and you will sin to Adonoy, your God.

(20,19) If you besiege a city many days to wage war against it, to capture it, do not harm [any of] its trees by chopping it with an ax, because you eat from it you are not to cut it down; For, is the tree in the field a man to join the besieged to escape you?

(20,20) Only a tree that you know that it is not a fruit tree may you harm or cut down; and you will build battlements against the city that is waging war against you until it is conquered.

(21,1) If a corpse is found in the land that Adonoy, your God, is giving you to inherit, fallen in the field, it is not known who smote him.

(21,2) Your elders shall go out—and your judges—and measure in the direction of the cities around the corpse.

(21,3) Now, the city nearest the corpse—the elders of that city are to take a calf-heifer that has not been worked, that has not drawn [with] a yoke.

(21,4) The elders of that city will take down the calf to a stony valley that is not to be tilled and not to be seeded, and they shall decapitate the calf in that valley.

(21,5) The kohanim, descendants of Levi, will approach; because them did Adonoy, your God, choose to serve Him and to bless in Adonoy’s Name; and they will decide every dispute and every nega.

(21,6) And all the elders of that city, those near the corpse, will wash their hands over the calf beheaded in that valley.

(21,7) They will loudly declare, ‘‘Our hands have not spilled this blood and our eyes did not see.’’

(21,8) [The kohanim will say,] ‘‘Forgive Your people Yisroel, whom You, Adonoy, have redeemed; and do not allow innocent blood [liability] within Your people Yisroel.’’ The blood shall thus be atoned for in their behalf.

(21,9) Still, you must eradicate the [liability for] innocent blood from within you, when you do what is upright in Adonoy’s eyes.