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Detailed Stipulations: Purity and Unity

12 “These are the rules and the regulations that you must diligently observe[a] in the land that Yahweh, the God of your ancestors,[b] has given to you to take possession of it, during all the days that you are living on the land.

You must completely demolish all of the places there where they served their gods, that is, the nations whom you are about to dispossess, on the high mountains, and on the hills and under each leafy green tree.[c] And you shall break down their altars, and you shall smash their stone pillars, and their Asherah poles you must burn with fire, and the images of their gods you shall hew down, and you shall blot out their names from that place. You shall not worship Yahweh your God like this.

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Footnotes

  1. Deuteronomy 12:1 Literally “that you must observe to do”
  2. Deuteronomy 12:1 Or “fathers”
  3. Deuteronomy 12:2 Or “spreading tree”

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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Footnotes

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