Laws of the Sanctuary

12 “These are the statutes and judgments (precepts) which you shall be careful to do in the land which the Lord, the God of your fathers, has given you to possess as long as you live on the earth. ² You shall utterly destroy all the places where the nations whom you shall dispossess serve their gods, on the high mountains and the hills and under every green [leafy] tree. ³ You shall tear down their altars and smash their [idolatrous] pillars and burn their ^[a]Asherim in the fire; you shall cut down the carved and sculpted images of their gods and obliterate their name from that place. ⁴ You shall not act like this toward the Lord your God. ⁵ But you shall seek the Lord at the place which the Lord your God will choose out of all your tribes to establish His ^[b]Name there for His dwelling [place], and there you shall come [to worship Him]. ⁶ There you shall bring your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, the contribution of your hand, your votive (pledged, vowed) offerings, your freewill (voluntary) offerings, and the firstborn of your herd and of your flock. ⁷ And there you and your households shall eat before the Lord your God, and rejoice in all to which you put your hand, in which the Lord your God has blessed you.

⁸ “You shall not do at all what we are doing here [in the camp] today, every man doing whatever is right in his [own] eyes. ⁹ For you have not yet come to the resting place and to the inheritance which the Lord your God is giving you. ¹⁰ When you cross the Jordan and live in the land which the Lord your God is giving you to inherit, and He gives you rest from all your enemies around you so that you live in security, ¹¹ then it shall come about that the place which the Lord your God will choose for His Name [and Presence] to dwell; there you shall bring everything that I am commanding you: your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes and the [voluntary] contribution of your hand [as a first gift from the fruits of the ground], and all your choice votive offerings which you vow to the Lord. ¹² And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God, you and your sons and your daughters, and your male and female servants, and the Levite who is within your [city] gates, since he has no portion or inheritance with you.

¹³ “Be careful that you do not offer your burnt offerings in every [cultic] place you see, ¹⁴ but [only] in the place which the Lord will choose in one of your tribes, there you shall offer your burnt offerings, and there you shall do everything that I am commanding you.

¹⁵ “However, you may slaughter and eat meat within any of your [city] gates, whatever you wish, according to the blessing of the Lord your God which He has given you [as His generous provision for daily life]. The [ceremonially] unclean and the clean may eat it, such as the gazelle and the deer. ¹⁶ Only you shall not eat the blood; you are to pour it out on the ground like water. ¹⁷ You are forbidden to eat within your [city] gates the tithe of your grain or new wine or oil, or the firstborn of your herd or flock, or any of your votive offerings, or your freewill offerings, or the contribution of your hand. ¹⁸ But you shall eat them before the Lord your God in the place which the Lord your God will choose, you and your son and your daughter, and your male and female servants, and the Levite who is within your [city] gates; and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God in all ^[c]that you undertake. ¹⁹ Be careful that you do not neglect the Levite [who serves God] ^[d]as long as you live in your land.

²⁰ “When the Lord your God extends your territory, as He promised you, and you say, ‘I will eat meat,’ because you want to eat meat, then you may eat meat, whatever ^[e]you wish. ²¹ If the place which the Lord your God chooses to put His Name (Presence) is too far away from you, then you may slaughter [animals] from your herd or flock which the Lord has given you, just as I have commanded you; and you may eat within your [city] gates whatever you wish. ²² Just as the gazelle or the deer is eaten, so you may eat it [but not make it an offering]; the [ceremonially] unclean and the clean alike may eat it. ²³ Only be sure that you do not eat the blood, for the blood is the life (soul), and you shall not eat the life with the meat. ²⁴ You shall not eat it; you shall pour it out on the ground like water. ²⁵ You shall not eat it, so that all may be well with you and with your children after you, because you will be doing what is right in the sight of the Lord. ²⁶ However, you shall take your holy things which you have [to offer] and your votive (pledged, vowed) offerings, you shall take them and go to the place which the Lord will choose. ²⁷ And you shall offer your burnt offerings, the meat and the blood, on 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 shall eat the meat.

²⁸ “Be careful to listen to all these words which I am commanding you, so that it may be well with you and with your ^[f]children after you forever, because you will be doing what is good and right in the sight of the Lord your God.

²⁹ “When the Lord your God cuts off and destroys before you the nations which you are going in to dispossess, and you dispossess them and settle in their land, ³⁰ beware that you are not lured (ensnared) into following them, after they have been destroyed before you, and that you do not inquire about their gods, saying, ‘How did these nations serve their gods, so that I too may do likewise?’ ³¹ You shall not behave this way toward the Lord your God, for they have done for their gods every repulsive thing which the Lord hates; for they even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire [as sacrifices] to their gods.

³² “Everything I command you, you shall be careful to do it; you shall not add to it nor take away from it.

Shun Idolatry

13 “If a prophet arises among you, or a dreamer of dreams, and gives you a sign or a wonder, ² and the sign or the wonder which he spoke (foretold) to you comes to pass, and if he says, ‘Let us follow after other gods (whom you have not known) and let us serve and worship them,’ ³ you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams; for the Lord your God is testing you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and mind and all your soul [your entire being]. ⁴ You shall walk after the Lord your God and you shall fear [and worship] Him [with awe-filled reverence and profound respect], and you shall keep His commandments and you shall listen to His voice, and you shall serve Him, and cling to Him. ⁵ But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he has counseled rebellion against the Lord your God who brought you from the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of slavery, to draw you away from the way in which the Lord your God has commanded you to walk. So you shall remove the evil from among you.

⁶ “If your brother, the son of your mother, or your son or daughter, or ^[g]the wife you cherish, or your friend who is as [precious to you as] your own life (soul), entices you secretly, saying, ‘Let us go and serve other gods’ (gods whom neither you nor your fathers have known, ⁷ of the gods of the peoples who are around you, near you or far from you, from one end of the earth to the other), ⁸ you shall not consent to him or listen to him; and your eye shall not pity him, nor shall you spare him or conceal him. ⁹ Instead, you shall most certainly execute him; your hand shall be first [to be raised] against him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people. ¹⁰ So you shall stone him to death with stones, because he has tried to draw you away from the Lord your God who brought you from the land of Egypt, from the house of slavery. ¹¹ Then all Israel will hear and be afraid, and will never again do such a wicked thing among you.

¹² “If you hear [it said] in one of your cities, which the Lord your God gives you to live in, ¹³ that some worthless and evil men have gone out from among you and have tempted the inhabitants of their city [to sin], saying, ‘Let us go and serve other gods’ (whom you have not known), ¹⁴ then you shall investigate and search out [witnesses] and ask thorough questions. If it is true and the matter is established that this loathsome thing has been done among you, ¹⁵ you shall most certainly strike the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, utterly destroying it and all that is in it, even its livestock with the edge of the sword. ¹⁶ Then you shall collect all its spoil (plunder) into the middle of its open square and burn the city and set fire to the spoil as a whole burnt offering to the Lord your God. It shall be a ruin forever. It shall not be built again. ¹⁷ Nothing from that which is put under the ban (designated for destruction) shall cling to your hand, so that the Lord may turn away from His burning anger and show mercy to you, and have compassion on you and make you increase, just as He swore to your fathers, ¹⁸ because you have listened to and obeyed the voice of the Lord your God, keeping all His commandments which I am commanding you today, and doing what is right in the eyes of the Lord your God.

Clean and Unclean Animals

14 “You are the sons of the Lord your God; ^[h]you shall not cut yourselves nor ^[i]shave your forehead for the sake of the dead, ² for you are a holy people [set apart] to the Lord your God; and the Lord has chosen you out of all the peoples who are on the earth to be a people for His own possession.

³ “You shall not eat anything that is detestable [to the Lord and forbidden by Him]. ⁴ These are the animals that you may eat: the ox, the sheep, the goat, ⁵ the deer, the gazelle, the roebuck, the wild goat, the ibex, the antelope and the mountain sheep. ⁶ Among the animals, you may eat any animal that has the divided hoof [that is, a hoof] split into two parts [especially at its distal extremity] and that chews the cud. ⁷ However, you are not to eat any of these [animals] among those which chew the cud, or among those that divide the hoof in two: the camel, the hare and the ^[j]shaphan, for though they chew the cud, they do not split the hoof; they are unclean for you. ⁸ The swine, because it has a divided hoof but does not chew the cud; it is unclean for you. You shall not eat their meat nor touch their carcasses.

⁹ “Of all [creatures] that are in the waters, you may eat these: anything that has fins and scales you may eat, ¹⁰ but you may not eat anything that does not have fins and scales; it is unclean for you.

¹¹ “You may eat any clean bird. ¹² But these are the ones which you shall not eat: the eagle, the vulture, and the black buzzard, ¹³ and the red kite, the falcon, and the birds of prey ^[k]of any variety, ¹⁴ and every raven of any variety, ¹⁵ and the ostrich, the owl, the seagull, the hawk of any variety, ¹⁶ the little owl, the great owl, the long-eared owl, ¹⁷ the pelican, the carrion vulture, the cormorant, ¹⁸ the stork, and the heron of any variety, and the hoopoe, and the bat. ¹⁹ And all flying insects are unclean for you; they shall not be eaten. ²⁰ You may eat any clean bird.

²¹ “You shall not eat anything that dies on its own. You may give it to the stranger (resident alien, foreigner) who is in your [city] gates, so that he may eat it, or you may sell it to a foreigner [since they are not under God’s law], but you are a people holy (set apart) to the Lord your God. You shall not ^[l]boil a young goat or a lamb in its mother’s milk.

²² “Every year you shall certainly tithe [a tenth] of all the yield of your seed which is produced by your field. ^23 [m]You shall eat the tithe (tenth) of your grain, your new wine, your oil, and the firstborn of your herd and your flock before the Lord your God in the place where He chooses to establish His Name (Presence), so that you may learn to fear [and worship] the Lord your God [with awe-filled reverence and profound respect] always. ²⁴ If the place where the Lord your God chooses to set His Name (Presence) is a great distance from you and you are not able to carry your tithe, because the Lord your God has blessed you [with such an abundance], ²⁵ then you shall exchange your tithe for money, and take the money in your hand and go to the place [of worship] which the Lord your God chooses. ²⁶ You may spend the money for ^[n]anything your heart desires: for oxen, or sheep, or wine, or [other] strong drink, or ^[o]anything else you want. You shall eat there in the presence of the Lord your God and rejoice, you and your household. ²⁷ Also you shall not neglect the Levite who is within your [city] gates, for he does not have a share [of land] or an inheritance among you.

²⁸ “At the end of every third year you shall bring out all the tithe of your produce for that year, and shall store it up within your [city] gates. ²⁹ The Levite, because he has no share [of land] or an inheritance among you, and the stranger, and the orphan and the widow who are within your [city] gates, shall come and eat and be satisfied, so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands.