Deuteronomy 16:14-22

16:14 You are to rejoice in your festival, you, your son, your daughter, your male and female slaves, the Levites, the resident foreigners, the orphans, and the widows who are in your villages. ¹  16:15 You are to celebrate the festival seven days before the Lord your God in the place he ²  chooses, for he ³  will bless you in all your productivity and in whatever you do; ⁴  so you will indeed rejoice! 16:16 Three times a year all your males must appear before the Lord your God in the place he chooses for the Festival of Unleavened Bread, the Festival of Weeks, and the Festival of Temporary Shelters; and they must not appear before him ⁵  empty-handed. 16:17 Every one of you must give as you are able, ⁶  according to the blessing of the Lord your God that he has given you.

Provision for Justice

16:18 You must appoint judges and civil servants ⁷  for each tribe in all your villages ⁸  that the Lord your God is giving you, and they must judge the people fairly. ⁹  16:19 You must not pervert justice or show favor. Do not take a bribe, for bribes blind the eyes of the wise and distort ¹⁰  the words of the righteous. ¹¹  16:20 You must pursue justice alone ¹²  so that you may live and inherit the land the Lord your God is giving you.

Examples of Legal Cases

16:21 You must not plant any kind of tree as a sacred Asherah pole ¹³  near the altar of the Lord your God which you build for yourself. 16:22 You must not erect a sacred pillar, ¹⁴  a thing the Lord your God detests.

¹ tn Heb “in your gates.”

² tn Heb “the Lord.” See note on “he” in 16:1.

³ tn Heb “the Lord your God.” See note on “he” in 16:1.

⁴ tn Heb “in all the work of your hands” (so NASB, NIV); NAB, NRSV “in all your undertakings.”

⁵ tn Heb “the Lord.” See note on “he” in 16:1.

⁶ tn Heb “a man must give according to the gift of his hand.” This has been translated as second person for stylistic reasons, in keeping with the second half of the verse, which is second person rather than third.

⁷ tn The Hebrew term וְשֹׁטְרִים (vÿshoterim), usually translated “officers” (KJV, NCV) or “officials” (NAB, NIV, NRSV, NLT), derives from the verb שֹׁטֵר (shoter, “to write”). The noun became generic for all types of public officials. Here, however, it may be appositionally epexegetical to “judges,” thus resulting in the phrase, “judges, that is, civil officers,” etc. Whoever the שֹׁטְרִים are, their task here consists of rendering judgments and administering justice.

⁸ tn Heb “gates.”

⁹ tn Heb “with judgment of righteousness”; ASV, NASB “with righteous judgment.”

¹⁰ tn Heb “twist, overturn”; NRSV “subverts the cause.”

¹¹ tn Or “innocent”; NRSV “those who are in the right”; NLT “the godly.”

¹² tn Heb “justice, justice.” The repetition is emphatic; one might translate as “pure justice” or “unadulterated justice” (cf. NLT “true justice”).

¹³ tn Heb “an Asherah, any tree.”

¹⁴ sn Sacred pillar. This refers to the stelae (stone pillars; the Hebrew term is מַצֵּבֹת, matsevot) associated with Baal worship, perhaps to mark a spot hallowed by an alleged visitation of the gods. See also Deut 7:5.