Deuteronomy 14:22-29
The Voice
Behind these dietary restrictions there’s a moral ideal. The people are being told to set up their community life exactly as the Lord instructs, so that all the other nations will take notice and acknowledge Him (4:6). To do this, they must recognize their own special place in the world, stick to their own proper realms, and not deviate from the way they should live within it. This is another way the people are to express their exclusive loyalty to the Lord. In other words, the sacrificial food for God encompasses the daily food for the people. And the Israelites can only eat animals, birds, and insects that exemplify and support life and do not have characteristics and locomotive ability that blur them between these three habitations of land, sea, and sky.
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.
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.
