Shoftim

"Judges and officers you shall appoint in all your gates." Justice heads the portion: no perverting of judgment, no partiality, no bribe, "for the bribe blinds the eyes of the wise" — "justice, justice shall you pursue, that you may live and inherit the land." No asherah beside the altar, no pillar, no blemished sacrifice. The idolater is put to death on the word of two or three witnesses, never one, the witnesses' hands first upon him. A case too hard is brought up to the priests and the judge of that time at the chosen place, and their ruling is followed exactly.

Israel's institutions are set out in turn. A king, if they ask for one, must be from among their brothers — not multiplying horses (or returning the people to Egypt for them), wives, or silver and gold — and he writes for himself a copy of this Torah, reading it all the days of his life, "that his heart not be lifted above his brothers." The priests and Levites, landless, live from the offerings and the portions assigned them. The abominations of the nations — divination, soothsaying, omens, sorcery, mediums, inquiring of the dead — are forbidden: "you shall be wholehearted with the LORD your God." Instead, a prophet from among their brothers, like Moses, will be raised up — into whose mouth God will put His words; and the prophet who presumes to speak what was not commanded, or whose word does not come to pass, is not feared.

The final chapters take up life and death in the land. Three cities of refuge are set apart (with three more if the territory grows), so that innocent blood is not shed when a man kills his neighbor unintentionally — the axe head flying from the handle — while the deliberate murderer is taken even from the refuge city. Boundary markers are not moved. One witness convicts no one; the conspiring witness suffers what he schemed — "as he plotted to do to his brother." In war, the priest addresses the ranks — "let not your heart be faint" — and the officers send home the man with a new house, a new vineyard, a betrothed wife, and the one who is simply afraid. Peace is offered to a distant city before siege; the trees around a besieged city are not cut down for the siege — "is the tree of the field a man, that it should be besieged by you?" And when a slain body is found in the open country and the killer unknown, the elders of the nearest town break a heifer's neck in an untilled wadi and wash their hands over it: "our hands did not shed this blood... absolve Your people Israel."