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Clean and Unclean Foods

Do not eat any detestable thing.

These are the animals that you may eat: cattle, sheep, and goats; deer, gazelle, roebuck, wild goat, ibex, antelope, and mountain sheep. Every animal that has divided hoofs with splits in the middle and that rechews its food[a] among the animals—you may eat them.

But these you are not to eat from among those that either rechew their food or have divided hoofs with splits in the middle: the camel, the hare, and the rock badger, because even though they rechew their food, their hoofs are not divided. They are unclean for you. The pig, because it has divided hoofs but does not rechew its food, is unclean for you. You are not to eat their flesh and you are not to touch their carcasses.

These you may eat of all the creatures that live in the water: Any that have fins and scales you may eat. 10 Any that do not have fins and scales you are not to eat. They are unclean for you.

11 Any clean bird you may eat. 12 But you are not to eat the following: the eagle, the black vulture, and the bearded vulture, 13 the red kite, the black kite, and falcons of every kind, 14 ravens and crows of every kind, 15 the eagle owl, the short-eared owl, the long-eared owl, all species of hawks, 16 the tawny owl, the fisher owl, the screech owl, 17 the white owl, and the scops owl, the osprey, 18 the stork and herons of every kind, the hoopoe, and the bat.[b] 19 Any swarming insect that flies is unclean for you. None of them are to be eaten. 20 Any clean winged creature you may eat.

21 Do not eat the carcass of any animal that is found dead. You may give it to the alien who resides in your town, and he may eat it or sell it to a foreigner, but you are a people who are set apart as holy for the Lord your God.

Do not boil a baby goat in its mother’s milk.

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Footnotes

  1. Deuteronomy 14:6 Or brings up the cud. The term describes an animal that rechews its food after it has swallowed it once and then regurgitated it or excreted it. This list is not limited to true ruminants.
  2. Deuteronomy 14:18 The precise identity of many of the birds is uncertain. Translations vary greatly. The inclusion of bats shows that the category is flyers.