Justice Must Be Administered

¹⁸ “You shall appoint ^(A)judges and officers in all your ^[a]gates, which the Lord your God gives you, according to your tribes, and they shall judge the people with just judgment. ^19 (B)You shall not pervert justice; ^(C)you shall not ^[b]show partiality, ^(D)nor take a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and ^[c]twists the words of the righteous. ²⁰ You shall follow what is altogether just, that you may ^(E)live and inherit the land which the Lord your God is giving you.

^8 (A)“If a matter arises which is too hard for you to judge, between degrees of guilt for bloodshed, between one judgment or another, or between one punishment or another, matters of controversy within your gates, then you shall arise and go up to the ^(B)place which the Lord your God chooses. ⁹ And ^(C)you shall come to the priests, the Levites, and ^(D)to the judge there in those days, and inquire of them; ^(E)they shall pronounce upon you the sentence of judgment. ¹⁰ You shall do according to the sentence which they pronounce upon you in that place which the Lord chooses. And you shall be careful to do according to all that they order you. ¹¹ According to the sentence of the law in which they instruct you, according to the judgment which they tell you, you shall do; you shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left from the sentence which they pronounce upon you. ¹² Now ^(F)the man who acts presumptuously and will not heed the priest who stands to minister there before the Lord your God, or the judge, that man shall die. So you shall put away the evil from Israel. ^13 (G)And all the people shall hear and fear, and no longer act presumptuously.