Food for Our Souls: Parashat HaShavua in Our Lives Vol. 1, Episode 40: Shof'tim, Deuteronomy 16:18-21:9

(18) Judges/magistrates and officials/overseers you are to provide for yourselves, within all your gates that the Judge of All the Earth your God is giving you, for your tribal districts; they are to judge the people with just judgment. (19) You are not to key judgment. You are to recognize no face and no bribe you are to take, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and perverts the words of the innocent. (20) Justice, justice/equity, equity you are to pursue, in order that you may live and possess the land that the Creator of All your God is giving you.

(25) Heaven forbid for you to do a thing like this, to deal death to the innocent along with the guilty, that it should come about: like the innocent, like the guilty, Heaven forbid for you! The judge of all the earth - will God judge justly?

(21) You are not to plant yourself an Ashera (cultic pole) or any kind of tree structure beside the altar of the Ruler of the Earth your God that you make yourself; (22) And you are not to set up a pillar/standing stone which the Judge of All the Earth hates. (1) You are not to slaughter an offering to the Creator of All your God of an ox or a sheep that has any defect, anything ill, for it is an abomination to the Ruler of the Earth your God.

(14) When you enter the land that the Judge of All the Earth your God is giving you, and you possess it and settle in it, should you say: I will set over me a king like all the nations that are around me - (15) you may set, yes, set over you a ruler that the Creator of All your God chooses; from among your siblings you may set over you a ruler, you may not place over you a foreign person who is not a sibling to you. (16) Only: let them not have multiple horses, and they are not to return the people to Egypt in order to multiply horses, since the Ruler of the Earth has said to you: You will never return that way again!(17) And they are not to multiply spouses for oneself, that their heart is not turned-aside, and silver or gold they are not to multiply for oneself to excess.

(18) But it shall be: when they sit on the throne of their dominion, they are to write for themselves a copy of this Instruction/teaching in a document, before the presence of Levitical priests. (19) It is to remain beside them, they are to read out of it all the days of their life, in order that they may learn to have awe for the Judge of All the Earth their God, to be careful concerning all the words of this Instruction and these laws, to observe/do them, (20) that their heart not be raised above their siblings, that they not turn aside from what is commanded to the right or to the left; in order that they may prolong their days over their dominion, they and their progeny, in the midst of Israel.

(1) When the Creator of All your God cuts off the nations whose land the Ruler of the Earth your God is giving you, and you dispossess them and settle in their towns and in their houses, (2) three towns you are to separate for yourselves, in the midst of your land that the Judge of All the Earth your God is giving you to possess. (3) You are to gauge for yourself the distance and divide in three the territory of your land that the Creator of All your God will grant you in estate, and it will be for every murderer to flee there. (4) And this is the case of the murderer who will flee there and live: one who strikes down their neighbor with no foreknowledge, nor did they bear hatred toward the other from yesterday and the day before.

(15) One witness alone shall not rise up against a person for any case of crime and for any offense, in any offense that one may commit, by the word of two witnesses or at the mouth of three witnesses, a legal matter is to be established. (16) Should a corrupt witness rise up against someone, to testify against one falsely, (17) and the two parties who have the quarrel stand before the presence of the Ruler of the Earth, before the presence of the priests or the judges that are there in those days: (18) the judges are to inquire well; and if here: a false witness is the witness, falsely has testified against one's sibling: (19) you shall do to them as they schemed to do to their sibling. So you shall burn out the evil from your midst. (20) others will hear and be afraid, and such evil things will not again be done in your midst. (21) Your eye is not to take pity: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.

(5) Then the officials are to speak to the people, saying: Who is the man that has built a new house and has not yet dedicated it? Let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the war and another man dedicate it. (6) And who is the man that has planted a vineyard and has not yet made common use of it? Let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the war and another man make common use of it. (7) And who is the man that has betrothed a woman and has not yet taken her in marriage? Let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the war and another man wed her. (8) And the officers are to continue to speak to the people, they are to say: Who is the man, the one afraid and soft of heart? Let him go and return to his house, so that he does not melt the heart of his brothers, like his heart. (9) And it shall be, when the officials finish speaking to the people, the commanders of the armed forces are to count by head the fighting people.

(19) When you besiege a town many days to do battle against it, you are not to destroy its trees to swing an axe against them, for from them you shall eat, and you shall not cut them down. For is the tree of the field a human, to come away from you in the siege? (20) Only trees that you know do not yield food may be destroyed; you may cut them down for constructing siegeworks against the city that is waging war on you, until it has been reduced.