14-17 When you enter the land that God, your God, is giving you and take it over and settle down, and then say, “I’m going to get me a king, a king like all the nations around me,” make sure you get yourself a king whom God, your God, chooses. Choose your king from among your kinsmen; don’t take a foreigner—only a kinsman. And make sure he doesn’t build up a war machine, amassing military horses and chariots. He must not send people to Egypt to get more horses, because God told you, “You’ll never go back there again!” And make sure he doesn’t build up a harem, collecting wives who will divert him from the straight and narrow. And make sure he doesn’t pile up a lot of silver and gold.

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15 be sure to appoint(A) over you a king the Lord your God chooses. He must be from among your fellow Israelites.(B) Do not place a foreigner over you, one who is not an Israelite. 16 The king, moreover, must not acquire great numbers of horses(C) for himself(D) or make the people return to Egypt(E) to get more of them,(F) for the Lord has told you, “You are not to go back that way again.”(G) 17 He must not take many wives,(H) or his heart will be led astray.(I) He must not accumulate(J) large amounts of silver and gold.(K)

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