Deuteronomy 11-13 (Amplified Bible)

Deuteronomy 11

 ¹THEREFORE YOU shall love the Lord your God and keep His charge, His statutes, His precepts, and His commandments always.

    ²And know this day--for I am not speaking to your children who have not [personally] known and seen it--the instruction and discipline of the Lord your God: His greatness, His mighty hand, and His outstretched arm;

    ³His signs and His deeds which He did in Egypt to Pharaoh the king of Egypt and to all his land;

    ⁴And what He did to the army of Egypt, to their horses and chariots, how He made the waters of the Red Sea flow over them as they pursued you, and how the Lord has destroyed them to this day;

    ⁵And what He did to you in the wilderness until you came to this place;

    ⁶And what He did to Dathan and Abiram, sons of Eliab, the son of Reuben, how the earth opened its mouth and swallowed up them, their households, their tents, and every living thing that followed them, in the midst of all Israel.^(A)

    ⁷For your eyes have seen all the great work of the Lord which He did.

    ⁸Therefore you shall keep all the commandments which I command you today, that you may be strong and go in and possess the land which you go across [the Jordan] to possess,

    ⁹And that you may live long in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers to give to them and to their descendants, a land flowing with milk and honey.

    ¹⁰For the land which you go in to possess is not like the land of Egypt, from which you came out, where you sowed your seed and watered it with your foot laboriously as in a garden of vegetables.

    ¹¹But the land which you enter to possess is a land of hills and valleys which drinks water of the rain of the heavens,

    ¹²A land for which the Lord your God cares; the eyes of the Lord your God are always upon it from the beginning of the year to the end of the year.

    ¹³And if you will diligently heed My commandments which I command you this day--to love the Lord your God and to serve Him with all your [mind and] heart and with your entire being--

    ¹⁴I will give the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the latter rain, that you may gather in your grain, your new wine, and your oil.

    ¹⁵And I will give grass in your fields for your cattle, that you may eat and be full.

    ¹⁶Take heed to yourselves, lest your [minds and] hearts be deceived and you turn aside and serve other gods and worship them,

    ¹⁷And the Lord's anger be kindled against you, and He shut up the heavens so that there will be no rain and the land will not yield its fruit, and you perish quickly off the good land which the Lord gives you.

    ¹⁸Therefore you shall lay up these My words in your [minds and] hearts and in your [entire] being, and bind them for a sign upon your hands and as forehead bands between your eyes.

    ¹⁹And you shall teach them to your children, speaking of them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you rise up.

    ²⁰And you shall write them upon the doorposts of your house and on your gates,

    ²¹That your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers to give them, as long as the heavens are above the earth.

    ²²For if you diligently keep all this commandment which I command you to do, to love the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways, and to cleave to Him--

    ²³Then the Lord will drive out all these nations before you, and you shall dispossess nations greater and mightier than you.

    ²⁴Every place upon which the sole of your foot shall tread shall be yours: from the wilderness to Lebanon, and from the River, the river Euphrates, to the western sea [the Mediterranean] your territory shall be.

    ²⁵There shall no man be able to stand before you; the Lord your God shall lay the fear and the dread of you upon all the land that you shall tread, as He has said to you.

    ²⁶Behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse--

    ²⁷The blessing if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you this day;

    ²⁸And the curse if you will not obey the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn aside from the way which I command you this day to go after other gods, which you have not known.

    ²⁹And when the Lord your God has brought you into the land which you go to possess, you shall set the blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ebal.^(B)

    ³⁰Are they not beyond the Jordan, west of the road, where the sun goes down, in the land of the Canaanites living in the Arabah opposite Gilgal, beside the oaks or terebinths of Moreh?

    ³¹For you are to cross over the Jordan to go in to possess the land which the Lord your God gives you, and you shall possess it and live in it.

    ³²And you shall be watchful to do all the statutes and ordinances which I set before you this day.

   

Deuteronomy 12

 ¹THESE ARE the statutes and ordinances which you shall be watchful to do in the land which the Lord, the God of your fathers, gives you to possess all the days you live on the earth.

    ²You shall surely destroy all the places where the nations you dispossess served their gods, upon the high mountains and the hills and under every green tree.

    ³You shall break down their altars and dash in pieces their pillars and burn their Asherim with fire; you shall hew down the graven images of their gods and destroy their name out of that place.

    ⁴You shall not behave so toward the Lord your God.

    ⁵But you shall seek the place which the Lord your God shall choose out of all your tribes to put His ^[a]Name and make His dwelling place, and there shall you come;

    ⁶And there you shall bring your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and the offering of your hands, and your vows and your freewill offerings, and the firstlings of your herd and of your flock.

    ⁷And there you shall eat before the Lord your God, and you shall rejoice in all to which you put your hand, you and your households, in which the Lord your God has blessed you.

    ⁸You ^[b]shall not do according to all we do here [in the camp] this day, every man doing whatever looks right in his own eyes.

    ⁹For you have not yet come to the rest and to the inheritance which the Lord your God gives you.

    ¹⁰But when you go over the Jordan and dwell in the land which the Lord your God causes you to inherit, and He gives you rest from all your enemies round about so that you dwell in safety,

    ¹¹Then there shall be a place which the Lord your God shall choose to cause His Name [and His Presence] to dwell there; to it you shall bring all that I command you: your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes and what the hand presents [as a first gift from the fruits of the ground], and all your choicest offerings which you vow to the Lord.

    ¹²And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God, you and your sons and your daughters, and your menservants and your maidservants, and the Levite that is within your towns, since he has no part or inheritance with you.

    ¹³Be watchful not to offer your burnt offerings in every place you see.

    ¹⁴But in the place which the Lord shall choose in one of your tribes, there you shall offer your burnt offerings, and there you shall do all I command you.

    ¹⁵However, you may kill and eat flesh in any of your towns whenever you desire, according to the provision for the support of life with which the Lord your God has blessed you; those [ceremonially] unclean and the clean may eat of it, as of the gazelle and the hart.

    ¹⁶Only you shall not eat the blood; you shall pour it upon the ground as water.

    ¹⁷You may not eat within your towns the tithe of your grain or of your new wine or of your oil, or the firstlings of your herd or flock, or anything you have vowed, or your freewill offerings, or the offerings from your hand [of garden products].

    ¹⁸But you shall eat them before the Lord your God in the place which the Lord your God shall choose, you and your son and your daughter, your manservant and your maidservant, and the Levite that is within your towns; and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God in all that you undertake.

    ¹⁹Take heed not to forsake or neglect the Levite [God's minister] as long as you live in your land.

    ²⁰When the Lord your God enlarges your territory, as He promised you, and you say, I will eat flesh, because you crave flesh, you may eat flesh whenever you desire.

    ²¹If the place where the Lord your God has chosen to put His Name [and Presence] is too far from you, then you shall kill from your herd or flock which the Lord has given you, as I [Moses] have commanded you; eat in your towns as much as you desire.

    ²²Just as the roebuck and the hart is eaten, so you may eat of it [but not offer it]; the unclean and the clean alike may eat of it.

    ²³Only be sure that you do not eat the blood, for the blood is the life, and you may not eat the life with the flesh.

    ²⁴You shall not eat it; you shall pour it out on the earth like water.

    ²⁵You shall not eat it, that all may go well with you and with your children after you, when you do what is right in the sight of the Lord.

    ²⁶Only your holy things which you have [to offer] and what you have vowed you shall take, and go to the place [before the sanctuary] which the Lord shall choose.

    ²⁷And offer your burnt offerings, the flesh and the blood, upon the altar of the Lord your God; and the blood of your sacrifices shall be poured out on the altar of the Lord your God, and you may eat the flesh.

    ²⁸Be watchful and obey all these words which I command you, that it may go well with you and with your children after you forever, when you do what is good and right in the sight of the Lord your God.

    ²⁹When the Lord your God cuts off before you the nations whom you go to dispossess, and you dispossess them and live in their land,

    ³⁰Be watchful that you are not ensnared into following them after they have been destroyed before you and that you do not inquire after their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their gods? We will do likewise.

    ³¹You shall not do so to the Lord your God, for every abominable thing which the Lord hates they have done for their gods. For even their sons and their daughters they have burned in the fire to their gods.

    ³²Whatever I command you, be watchful to do it; you shall not add to it or diminish it.

   

Deuteronomy 13

 ¹IF A prophet arises among you, or a dreamer of dreams, and gives you a sign or a wonder,

    ²And the sign or the wonder he foretells to you comes to pass, and if he says, Let us go after other gods--gods you have not known--and let us serve them,

    ³You shall not listen to the words of that prophet or to that dreamer of dreams. For the Lord your God is testing you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your [mind and] heart and with your entire being.

    ⁴You shall walk after the Lord your God and [reverently] fear Him, and keep His commandments and obey His voice, and you shall serve Him and cling to Him.

    ⁵But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he has talked rebellion and turning away from the Lord your God, Who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you out of the house of bondage; that man has tried to draw you aside from the way in which the Lord your God commanded you to walk. So shall you put the evil away from your midst.

    ⁶If your brother, the son of your mother, or your son or daughter, or the wife of your bosom, or your friend who is as your own life entices you secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods--gods you have not known, you nor your fathers,

    ⁷Of the gods of the peoples who are round about you, near you or far away from you, from one end of the earth to the other--

    ⁸You shall not give consent to him or listen to him; nor shall your eye pity him, nor shall you spare him or conceal him.

    ⁹But you shall surely kill him; your hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hands of all the people.

    ¹⁰And you shall stone him to death with stones, because he has tried to draw you away from the Lord your God, Who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.

    ¹¹And all Israel shall hear and [reverently] fear, and shall never again do any such wickedness as this among you.

    ¹²If you hear it said in one of your cities which the Lord your God has given you in which to dwell

    ¹³That certain base fellows have gone out from your midst and have enticed away the inhabitants of their city, saying, Let us go and serve other gods--gods you have not known--

    ¹⁴Then you shall inquire and make search and ask diligently. And behold, if it is true and certain that such an abominable thing has been done among you,

    ¹⁵You shall surely smite the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, destroying it utterly and all who are in it and its beasts with the edge of the sword.

    ¹⁶And you shall collect all its spoil into the midst of its open square and shall burn the city with fire with every bit of its spoil [as a whole burnt offering] to the Lord your God. It shall be a heap [of ruins] forever; it shall not be built again.

    ¹⁷And nothing of the accursed thing shall cling to your hand, so that the Lord may turn from the fierceness of His anger, and show you mercy and have compassion on you and multiply you, as He swore to your fathers,

    ¹⁸If you obey the voice of the Lord your God, to keep all His commandments which I command you this day, to do what is right in the eyes of the Lord your God.