Deuteronomy 11:26-14:29

The Voice

Moses: ²⁹ When the Eternal your God brings you into the land where you’re going to live when you cross the Jordan, half of you are going to stand on Mount Gerizim and shout out the blessings that will come to those who obey the Lord. The other half of you will stand on Mount Ebal on the other side of the valley and shout out the curses that will fall on those who disobey Him. ³⁰ You’ll find these two mountains on the other side of the Jordan River, as you head west of your current path, in the territory of the Canaanites who live in the arid Jordan Valley^[a] around Gilgal, near the great trees at Moreh. ³¹ I tell you this now because you’re just about to cross the Jordan into the land where you’re going to live. The Eternal your God will give it to you; you’ll take possession of it and settle there. ³² And when you do, you must be very careful to obey all the regulations and judgments I’m giving you today.

12 Moses: These are the regulations and judgments you must carefully obey in the land the Eternal, the God of your ancestors, is giving you to live in, for as long as you are alive. ² Completely destroy all the places where the nations you’re going to conquer worshiped their gods—on the mountain heights and hilltops, and under every leafy tree.

Moses: ³ Tear down their altars, smash their monoliths, burn their sacred poles,^[b] and shatter their idols! Wipe out every trace of the names of their gods in those places. ⁴ The Eternal your God doesn’t want you to worship Him in the way these nations worshiped their gods, setting up shrines and altars all over the land. ⁵ He will choose a place within the territory of one of your tribes to be His home; He will put His Name there. Go there to worship Him. ⁶ Whenever you have something to offer, take it there: burnt offerings and sacrifices, tithes, uplifted offerings, freewill gifts, payments to fulfill vows, and firstborn animals from your herds and flocks. ⁷ Eat your sacred meals there in His presence, and celebrate with your whole household how the Eternal your God has blessed everything you’ve done. ⁸ Right now we’re letting everyone do as he or she sees fit here with unregulated sacrifices, ⁹ because you aren’t yet living in peace on the land He is going to give you. ¹⁰ When you’ve crossed the Jordan River and have settled in the land He is giving you to live in and pass on to your descendants, and you’re living in safety because He’s defeated the enemies all around you and they’re no longer a threat, ¹¹ then bring everything I command you to the place the Eternal, your True God, will choose as a sanctuary, as a place for His name. Bring your burnt offerings and other sacrifices there; bring your tithes, uplifted offerings, and the special gifts you choose to dedicate along with your vow to the Eternal. ¹² Celebrate in His presence with your sons and daughters and with your male and female slaves. And be sure to invite any Levites who live in your town, because their tribe won’t have any property as yours does. ¹³ Be careful! Don’t offer burnt sacrifices just anywhere that you find suitable. ¹⁴ Offer your burnt sacrifices only in the place He will choose in the territory of one of your tribes. And that’s the only place you should make any of the burnt offerings and execute everything else I’m telling you.

¹⁵ However, if you just want to have meat for a meal, if the Eternal your God has blessed you and you can afford it, you can do that in your own towns. Slaughter the animals and eat them there. It’s not a sacred meal, so people don’t need to be ritually pure to eat it, and it can be a gazelle or a deer. ¹⁶ But don’t consume any of the blood; pour it out on the ground like water as you would for any slaughter or sacrifice. ¹⁷ And remember you still can’t eat any of the special offerings in your own towns: tithes of grain, new wine, and olive oil; firstborn animals from your herds and flocks, any payments to fulfill vows, or freewill gifts and uplifted offerings. ¹⁸ Eat these special offerings in His presence in the place He chooses. Bring your sons, your daughters, and your male and female slaves, and remember to invite the Levites who live in your town. Celebrate together, in His presence, everything you’ve been able to accomplish. ¹⁹ (Don’t ever neglect the Levites! Make sharing with them a part of your lifestyle the whole time you’re living in that land.)

^20-21 You see, the Eternal your God is going to give you an extensive territory as He’s promised. You may be living at some distance from the place where He chooses to put His name. And there will be times when you say to yourself, “I’m going to have some meat—that’s what I’m craving!” Go right ahead—as often as you wish. If you take from one of the domesticated animals the Eternal has given you from your herd or your flock and eat it in your own town, I’m telling you it’s all right to do that. ²² It’s just like eating a gazelle or a deer. People don’t need to be ritually pure to eat this meat. ²³ But discipline yourselves not to eat the blood because the blood is the soul, and you mustn’t eat the soul along with the meat. ²⁴ Don’t eat the blood; pour it out on the ground like water. ²⁵ If you don’t eat it, you’ll be doing what the Eternal considers right, and everything will go well for you and your descendants.

²⁶ But bring anything that will be a sacred meal and any sacrifice that will be offered to pay a vow to the place He will choose. ²⁷ There you will offer both the meat and the blood of your burnt sacrifices on His altar. You must pour out the blood of your sacrifices on the altar, but you will eat the meat. ²⁸ Be very careful to obey all these words I’m telling you. Then you’ll be doing what the Eternal your God considers good and right, and everything will go well for you and your descendants forever.

Moses: ²⁹ When the Eternal your God has destroyed the nations whose land you’re going to occupy, when you’ve displaced them and settled there, ³⁰ then be very careful! Don’t fall into a deadly trap by doing what those nations did, since they were destroyed when you came into their land! Don’t try to find out about their gods. Don’t ask, “How did these nations worship their gods? I’m going to do the same thing!” ³¹ Don’t worship the Eternal your God the way those nations worshiped their gods! They did every horrible thing He hates. They even burned up their sons and daughters as sacrifices to those gods. ³² Be very careful to do everything I’m commanding you. Don’t add anything to your worship, and don’t take anything away from it.

13 Moses: ^1-2 Suppose someone who claims to be a prophet, or to have inspired dreams, stands up and tells all of you that some unusual, significant sign or wonder is going to happen, and also says, “I’m here to let you know about some other gods you should be worshiping.” What if the thing that person has predicted actually happens? ³ Don’t listen to what that prophet or dreamer says! The Eternal your God is testing you to see whether you really do love Him completely, with your whole heart and soul. ⁴ Remain loyal to Him! Fear Him and obey His commands. Listen to His voice. Worship Him alone. Be fervently devoted to Him. ⁵ But as for that prophet or dreamer, put him to death! He’s tried to turn you away from the Eternal your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and liberated you from slavery. He’s tried to entice you off the path God commanded you to follow. Expel the evil from your community.

^6-7 What if someone close to you whispers secretly, “Let’s go worship other gods”? It doesn’t matter if it’s your brother or half-brother, your own son or daughter, your beloved wife or closest friend. Whether they’re gods of the people who live around you or gods of people who live far away—the gods of anyone on the face of the earth! You’ve never worshiped any of these gods before, and neither did your ancestors, because you’re in a covenant relationship with the Eternal. ^8-10 So don’t listen to this person. Don’t agree to go worship other gods with him or her. Anyone who entices you like this must be executed! Don’t feel sorry for him, or have mercy on him, or try to hide what he’s done. Stone him to death because he tried to entice you away from the Eternal, your True God who brought you out of the land of Egypt and rescued you from slavery. As the witness to what he said, and as the person he tried to corrupt, you must throw the first deadly stone, and then everyone else will join in. ¹¹ All the rest of the Israelites will hear about this and be afraid, and none of them will dare to do such an evil thing again in your land.

Moses: ¹² You may hear a report in one of the cities the Eternal your God is giving you to live in: ¹³ “Some wicked people have abandoned our faith, and they’ve convinced everyone else in their own city to worship other gods we’ve never had anything to do with!” ¹⁴ If you ever hear a report like this, conduct a careful, thorough investigation. If you establish conclusively that the report is true, that such a horrible thing has been done within your nation, ¹⁵ then bring your swords and execute everyone who lives in that city! Destroy it completely with everything in it—even the livestock. ¹⁶ Pile all the city’s goods in the middle of the public square, and then burn down the whole city and everything in it. This will be a burnt offering showing your complete loyalty to the Eternal your God. That city must never be rebuilt; let it remain a ruin forever. ¹⁷ Don’t take any of the goods for yourself because they have been banned; destroy everything. Then the Eternal will stop being so furiously angry. He’ll show you mercy and compassion; and you’ll have many descendants, just as He promised your ancestors, ¹⁸ if you’ll listen to the voice of the Eternal, your True God, obey all the commands I’m giving you today, and do what He decides is right.

14 Moses: You’re the children of the Eternal, your True God, so don’t cut yourselves or shave off the front of your hair to honor those who die. ² Remember you are people who have been set apart for Him; He has chosen you to be His own possession out of all the peoples on the earth.

³ Don’t eat anything that’s forbidden. ⁴ Here are some examples of land animals you can eat: oxen from your herds; sheep and goats from your flocks; ⁵ deer, gazelles, roebucks, wild goats, ibexes, antelopes, and mountain sheep, all from the wild. ⁶ The rule is, you can eat any of the animals that has a divided hoof (that is, a hoof separated into two sections) and chews cud. ⁷ You can’t eat an animal just because it chews cud or just because it has a divided hoof; both things have to be true. So, for example, the camel, the rabbit, and the rock badger are impure and can’t be eaten because even though they chew cud, they don’t have a divided hoof. ⁸ The pig is also unclean and can’t be eaten because even though it has a divided hoof, it doesn’t chew cud. Don’t eat the meat of any ritually unclean animals. Don’t even touch their carcasses when they die.

⁹ You can eat anything that lives in the water if it has fins and scales, ¹⁰ but if it doesn’t have fins and scales, then don’t eat it; it’s unclean to you.

¹¹ You can eat any clean bird. ^12-18 But here are some examples of birds you shouldn’t eat: birds that hunt and kill, such as the eagle, the falcon, and all kinds of hawks; birds that eat dead flesh, such as the red kite and any other kind of kite, the vulture, the buzzard, and any kind of raven; things that fly around in the night instead of during the day, such as the horned owl, screech owl, little owl, great owl, white owl, and the bat; birds that feed in the water, such as the seagull, pelican, carrion vulture, cormorant, stork, and every kind of heron; and birds that dig in the ground for their food, such as the hoopoe. ¹⁹ And don’t eat anything that flies in swarms, such as insects, because they are unclean. ²⁰ But you can eat anything that flies if it is ritually clean.

²¹ Don’t eat any meat from an animal you find dead of natural causes because its blood remains in the meat. You may give it to the foreigners in your city, and they may eat it, or you may sell it to a foreign merchant. But don’t eat it yourself; you are people who have been set apart for the Eternal your God. Don’t boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.

Moses: ²² Every year, when the seeds you’ve sown in your fields have grown into crops, make sure you set aside a tenth of the produce. ²³ Bring this tenth of the grain, oil, and new wine from that year’s crop, as well as all firstborn animals from your herds and flocks, to the place the Eternal your God will choose as a place for His name, and have a feast there in His presence. If you do this each year, you’ll learn to fear the Eternal your God always. ²⁴ If the place where He chooses to put His name is far from where you live, and the distance is too great for you to carry a tenth of that year’s produce there—particularly if He has blessed you— ²⁵ then sell everything you would have carried and bring the money yourself to the place the Eternal your God will choose. ²⁶ When you get there, you can still have a celebration. Use some of the money to buy whatever you crave: cattle or sheep, wine or strong drink, or any other special thing you’d really like. You and your household can have a feast in His presence. ²⁷ Be sure to invite any Levites who live in your city. Be especially generous to them because they won’t have any territory and property of their own to pass down to their children as you do.

^28-29 But at the end of every third year, keep a tenth of the year’s produce in your own town instead and give it to the needy people there: the Levites—whose tribe won’t have any territory and property of its own to pass down—the foreigners, the orphans, and the widows. Let them come and take as much as they want to eat for as long as these supplies last. If you do this, the Eternal your God will bless you in everything you do.