Deuteronomy 11:26-14:29

Evangelical Heritage Version

²⁶ You see, I am placing before you today a blessing and a curse: ²⁷ the blessing, if you listen to the commandments of the Lord your God that I am giving you today, ²⁸ or the curse, if you do not listen to the commandments of the Lord your God and you turn away from the path that I am commanding you today by walking after other gods whom you did not know.

²⁹ When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are about to enter and possess, you are to pronounce the blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ebal. ³⁰ As you know, they are on the other side of the Jordan, beyond the west road,^[a] toward the setting sun, in the land of the Canaanites that live in the Arabah, opposite Gilgal, by the oaks of Moreh.

³¹ You are about to cross over the Jordan to go in and take the land that the Lord your God is giving you. You will take it and live in it. ³² But be careful to carry out all the statutes and the ordinances that I am giving you today.

12 These are the statutes and the ordinances that you are to be conscientious about keeping in the land that the Lord, the God of your fathers, has given to you to possess all the days that you live in the land:

² Completely destroy all the places where the nations that you are driving out serve their gods, whether on the high mountains or on the hills or under every beautiful green tree. ³ Tear down their altars! Smash their sacred memorial stones! Burn their Asherah poles^[b] with fire, and cut down the carved images of their gods! In this way you will destroy their names from those places.

⁴ Do not serve the Lord your God in the way that they worship, ⁵ but seek out and go to the site that the Lord your God will choose from within all your tribes to place his name and his dwelling place. ⁶ There you are to bring your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and the elevated offerings from your hands, your offerings to fulfill a vow, your voluntary offerings, and the firstborn of your herd and your flock. ⁷ Eat there in the presence of the Lord your God, and rejoice in everything you do, you and your household, because the Lord your God has blessed you.

⁸ Do not in any way do what we are doing here today, that is, each person doing whatever is right in his own eyes, ⁹ because you have not yet come to your place of rest, the inheritance that the Lord your God is giving to you.

¹⁰ But you will cross over the Jordan and settle in the land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, and he will give you rest from all your enemies all around you, so that you will live in safety. ¹¹ Then go to the place that the Lord your God chooses as the place to establish his name. There you are to bring everything that I am commanding you: your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes, the offerings from your hands, and all the best voluntary offerings that you vow to the Lord.

¹² You will rejoice before the Lord your God, you and your sons and your daughters, and your male servants and your female servants, and the Levites who live within the gates of your cities, because they do not have an allotted inheritance among you.

¹³ Be careful that you do not offer up your burnt offering in just any place that you see fit, ¹⁴ but only in the place that the Lord will choose in one of your tribes. That is where you are to offer up your burnt offerings and where you are to do everything that I am commanding you.

¹⁵ But in any town you may butcher and eat meat to your heart’s content, as the Lord your God has blessed you. The unclean and the clean person alike may eat it as they would a gazelle or a deer, ¹⁶ but you must never eat the blood. Pour it on the ground like water.

¹⁷ You are not to eat the tithe from your grain, your new wine, or your fresh oil in your towns. The same applies to the firstborn of your herd and your flock, or anything you vow, or your voluntary offerings, or your special elevated offerings. ¹⁸ Eat those things before the Lord your God in the place that the Lord your God will choose—you and your sons and your daughters, your male servants and your female servants, and the Levites within your cities. Rejoice before the Lord your God in everything that you are doing.

¹⁹ Be careful that you do not neglect the Levites as long as you live on your land.

²⁰ When the Lord your God expands your territory as he promised you, and you say, “I would like to eat meat,” because you are hungry for meat, then you may eat it to your heart’s content. ²¹ If the place that the Lord your God will choose to establish his name is too far away for you, then you may slaughter^[c] animals from your herd and flock which the Lord has given you, just as I commanded you, and you may eat within your cities as you desire. ²² Yes, just as gazelle and deer are eaten, you may eat it. The unclean and the clean person alike may eat it. ²³ Only be very sure not to eat the blood, because the blood is the life, and you must not eat the life together with the flesh. ²⁴ Do not eat it. Pour it out on the ground like water. ²⁵ Do not eat it, so that it may go well for you and for your children after you when you do what is right in the eyes of the Lord.

²⁶ But as for the holy things that you have and your voluntary offerings, gather them up and take them to the place that the Lord will choose. ²⁷ Offer your burnt offerings, both the flesh and the blood, on the altar of the Lord your God. The blood of the sacrifice is to be poured out on the altar of the Lord your God, but the meat you may eat.

²⁸ Be careful that you obey all these words that I am commanding you so that it may go well for you and for your children after you in the distant future when you do what is good and right in the eyes of the Lord your God.

²⁹ When the Lord your God cuts off the nations where you are going and drives them out before you, and when you take possession of their land and settle in it, ³⁰ be careful that you are not snared after they have been destroyed before you. Do not inquire about their gods and ask, “How did these people serve their gods? I also want to do the same thing.”

³¹ Do not serve the Lord your God in the way that they worship, because they do for their gods every detestable thing that the Lord hates. They even burn their sons and daughters in fire for their gods.

³² Be careful to do everything that I am commanding you. Do not add to it, and do not subtract from it.

False Prophets and Fortune Tellers

13 If a prophet or an interpreter of dreams arises among you, and he predicts a sign or wonder for you,^{[d] 2} and the sign or wonder that he promised you comes true, and he says, “Let’s go after other gods that you do not know, and let’s serve them,” ³ do not listen to the words of that prophet or that interpreter of dreams, because the Lord your God is testing you to see whether you really love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.

⁴ Follow the Lord your God, fear him, keep his commandments, listen to his voice, serve him, and cling to him.

⁵ That prophet or that interpreter of dreams is to be put to death because he advised you to turn against the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of slavery, in order to draw you away from the path on which the Lord your God commanded you to walk. Purge the evil from among you.

The Penalty for Idolatry

⁶ If your full brother or your mother’s son, your son or your daughter, the wife you embrace, or your closest friend tempts you by saying secretly, “Let’s go and serve other gods,”—gods that neither you nor your fathers have known, ⁷ from among the gods of the peoples around you, either near or far from you, anywhere from one end of the land to the other— ⁸ do not be influenced by him and do not listen to him. Your eye is not to look on him with compassion. Do not spare him and do not pardon him, ⁹ but kill him. Your hand is to be the first one on him when putting him to death, and afterward the hands of all the other people. ¹⁰ Stone him to death, because he tried to pull you away from the Lord your God, who led you out of the land of Egypt, where you were slaves. ¹¹ Then all of Israel will hear and fear, and such an evil thing as this will not be done among you again.

¹² If you hear in one of your cities, which the Lord your God is giving you so that you can live in them, ¹³ men of worthless character have gone out from among you and have pulled the inhabitants of their city away from the Lord, saying, “Let’s go and serve other gods,” gods whom you have not known, ¹⁴ then investigate, search out the truth, and inquire diligently. If it becomes established truth that this abomination has been done among you, ¹⁵ you are to strike down the inhabitants of that city with the blade of the sword. Devote it and everything in it to complete destruction by the blade of the sword, including its cattle. ¹⁶ Gather all its plunder at the center of its town square. Then burn the city and all its plunder as a whole burnt offering to the Lord your God. It is to be a permanent mound of ruins, never to be rebuilt.

¹⁷ Let nothing that has been devoted to destruction stick to your hands, so that the Lord will turn away from his anger and show you compassion. In his compassion he will increase your population, as he swore to your fathers, ¹⁸ if you obey the voice of the Lord your God by keeping all of his commandments that I am commanding you today, by doing what is right in the eyes of the Lord your God.

14 You are the children of the Lord your God.

Do not cut yourselves or make a bald spot on your forehead for a dead person, ² because you are set apart as holy people for the Lord your God, and the Lord your God has chosen you out of all the people that are on the face of the earth, to be his people that are his treasured possession.

Clean and Unclean Foods

³ Do not eat any detestable thing.

⁴ These are the animals that you may eat: cattle, sheep, and goats; ⁵ deer, gazelle, roebuck, wild goat, ibex, antelope, and mountain sheep. ⁶ Every animal that has divided hoofs with splits in the middle and that rechews its food^[e] among the animals—you may eat them.

⁷ 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. ⁸ 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.

⁹ 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.^{[f] 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.

Tithes

²² Give a tenth of all the yield from your seed that comes out of the field every year.

²³ Eat the tithe in the presence of the Lord your God in the place that he will choose to establish his name—the tenth of your grain, your new wine, and your fresh oil, as well as the firstborn of your herd and flock, so that you may learn to fear the Lord your God always.

²⁴ When the Lord your God blesses you, if the distance of your journey is so long that you cannot carry the tithe with you, because the place that the Lord your God will choose to establish his name is far away from you, ²⁵ then you may exchange the tithe for silver and take the silver in your hand and travel to the place that the Lord your God will choose for himself. ²⁶ There exchange the silver for anything that you desire—animals from the herd or the flock, or wine or beer, or anything that you may want. Then eat it there before the Lord your God and rejoice, both you and your household.

²⁷ But you must not neglect the Levites who reside within the gates of your cities, because they do not have an allotted inheritance among you. ²⁸ At the end of every third year, bring out the entire tithe of your produce from that year and store it in your towns. ²⁹ Then the Levites may come, because they do not have an allotted inheritance among you, and also the aliens and the fatherless and the widows within your towns, and they may eat and be satisfied, so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work that your hands perform.