Judges

18 Appoint judges(A) and officials for each of your tribes in every town the Lord your God is giving you, and they shall judge the people fairly.(B) 19 Do not pervert justice(C) or show partiality.(D) Do not accept a bribe,(E) for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and twists the words of the innocent. 20 Follow justice and justice alone, so that you may live and possess the land the Lord your God is giving you.

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18 Judges and officers shalt thou make thee in all thy gates, which the Lord thy God giveth thee, throughout thy tribes: and they shall judge the people with just judgment.

19 Thou shalt not wrest judgment; thou shalt not respect persons, neither take a gift: for a gift doth blind the eyes of the wise, and pervert the words of the righteous.

20 That which is altogether just shalt thou follow, that thou mayest live, and inherit the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.

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Law Courts

If cases come before your courts that are too difficult for you to judge(A)—whether bloodshed, lawsuits or assaults(B)—take them to the place the Lord your God will choose.(C) Go to the Levitical(D) priests and to the judge(E) who is in office at that time. Inquire of them and they will give you the verdict.(F) 10 You must act according to the decisions they give you at the place the Lord will choose. Be careful to do everything they instruct you to do. 11 Act according to whatever they teach you and the decisions they give you. Do not turn aside from what they tell you, to the right or to the left.(G) 12 Anyone who shows contempt(H) for the judge or for the priest who stands ministering(I) there to the Lord your God is to be put to death.(J) You must purge the evil from Israel.(K) 13 All the people will hear and be afraid, and will not be contemptuous again.(L)

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If there arise a matter too hard for thee in judgment, between blood and blood, between plea and plea, and between stroke and stroke, being matters of controversy within thy gates: then shalt thou arise, and get thee up into the place which the Lord thy God shall choose;

And thou shalt come unto the priests the Levites, and unto the judge that shall be in those days, and enquire; and they shall shew thee the sentence of judgment:

10 And thou shalt do according to the sentence, which they of that place which the Lord shall choose shall shew thee; and thou shalt observe to do according to all that they inform thee:

11 According to the sentence of the law which they shall teach thee, and according to the judgment which they shall tell thee, thou shalt do: thou shalt not decline from the sentence which they shall shew thee, to the right hand, nor to the left.

12 And the man that will do presumptuously, and will not hearken unto the priest that standeth to minister there before the Lord thy God, or unto the judge, even that man shall die: and thou shalt put away the evil from Israel.

13 And all the people shall hear, and fear, and do no more presumptuously.

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