Deuteronomy 18:9-21

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

Child-Sacrifice, Divination, and Magic Prohibited

⁹ “When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you, you must not learn to imitate the abhorrent practices of those nations.^{(A) 10} No one shall be found among you who makes a son or daughter pass through fire, or who practices divination, or is a soothsayer, or an augur, or a sorcerer,^{(B) 11} or one who casts spells, or who consults ghosts or spirits, or who seeks oracles from the dead. ¹² For whoever does these things is abhorrent to the Lord; it is because of such abhorrent practices that the Lord your God is driving them out before you.^{(C) 13} You must remain completely loyal to the Lord your God. ¹⁴ Although these nations that you are about to dispossess do give heed to soothsayers and diviners, as for you, the Lord your God does not permit you to do so.

A New Prophet Like Moses

¹⁵ “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people; you shall heed such a prophet.^{[a](D) 16} This is what you requested of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said, ‘Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God or see this great fire any more, lest I die.’^{(E) 17} Then the Lord replied to me, ‘They are right in what they have said.^{(F) 18} I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their own people; I will put my words in the mouth of the prophet,^[b] who shall speak to them everything that I command.^{(G) 19} Anyone who does not heed the words that the prophet^[c] shall speak in my name, I myself will hold accountable.^{(H) 20} But any prophet who presumes to speak in my name a word that I have not commanded the prophet to speak or who speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die.’^{(I) 21} You may say to yourself, ‘How can we recognize a word that the Lord has not spoken?’