The One Place of Worship

12 These are the decrees(A) and laws you must be careful to follow in the land that the Lord, the God of your ancestors, has given you to possess—as long as you live in the land.(B) Destroy completely all the places on the high mountains,(C) on the hills and under every spreading tree,(D) where the nations you are dispossessing worship their gods. Break down their altars, smash(E) their sacred stones and burn(F) their Asherah(G) poles in the fire; cut down the idols of their gods and wipe out their names(H) from those places.

You must not worship the Lord your God in their way.(I)

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Regulations and the case laws:

Worship at the location the Lord selects

12 These are the regulations and the case laws that you must carefully keep in the fertile land the Lord, your ancestors’ God, has given to you to possess for as long as you live on that land:

You must completely destroy every place where the nations that you are displacing worshipped their gods—whether on high mountains or hills or under leafy green trees. Rip down their altars and shatter their sacred stones. Burn their sacred poles[a] with fire. Hack their gods’ idols into pieces. Wipe out their names from that place.

Don’t act like they did toward the Lord your God!

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Notas al pie

  1. Deuteronomy 12:3 Heb asherim, perhaps objects devoted to the goddess Asherah