Beginning

Love and Obey

11 You must love the Lord your God and keep His charge, His statutes, His ordinances, and His commandments always. ² Know this day that I am not speaking with your children who have not known and who have not seen the discipline of the Lord your God, His greatness, His mighty hand, and His outstretched arm, ³ and His signs and His works which He did in the midst of Egypt to Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, and to all his land, ⁴ and what He did to the army of Egypt, to their horses, and to their chariots, when He made the water of the Red Sea to flow over them as they pursued after you, and how the Lord utterly destroyed them, ⁵ and what He did to you in the wilderness until you came to this place, ⁶ and what He did to Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, the son of Reuben, when the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, their households, their tents, and everything that was in their possession, in the midst of all Israel. ⁷ But your eyes have seen all the great deeds of the Lord which He did.

⁸ Therefore you must keep all the commandments which I am commanding you today, so that you may be strong and go in and possess the land which you are going to possess; ⁹ and that you may prolong your days in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers to give to them and to their descendants, a land flowing with milk and honey. ¹⁰ For the land which you are entering to possess is not like the land of Egypt from where you came, where you sowed your seed and watered it with your foot like a vegetable garden, ¹¹ but the land, which you are entering to possess, is a land of hills and valleys and drinks water from the rain of heaven, ¹² a land for which the Lord your God cares. The eyes of the Lord your God are always on it, from the beginning of the year even to the end of the year.

¹³ It will be, if you will diligently obey My commandments which I am commanding you today, to love the Lord your God, and to serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul, ¹⁴ then I will give you the rain of your land in its season, the early rain and the latter rain, that you may gather in your grain and your wine and your oil. ¹⁵ I will provide grass in your fields for your livestock, that you may eat and be full.

¹⁶ Take heed to yourselves that your heart be not deceived, and you turn away and serve other gods and worship them. ¹⁷ Then the Lord’s wrath will be inflamed against you, and He will shut up the heavens so that there will be no rain and the land will not yield its fruit, and you will quickly perish from the good land which the Lord is giving you. ¹⁸ Therefore you must fix these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and bind them as a sign on your hand, so that they may be as frontlets between your eyes. ¹⁹ You shall teach them to your children, speaking of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. ²⁰ You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, ²¹ so that your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers to give them, as long as the days of heaven on the earth.

²² For if you diligently keep all these commandments which I am commanding you to do—to love the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways, and to hold fast to Him— ²³ then the Lord will drive out all these nations from before you, and you will dispossess nations greater and mightier than you. ²⁴ Every place where the soles of your feet tread will be yours. Your border will be from the wilderness to Lebanon, from the river, the River Euphrates, as far as the Mediterranean Sea. ²⁵ No man will be able to resist you, for the Lord your God shall lay the fear of you and the dread of you on all the land where you shall tread, just as He has spoken to you.

²⁶ See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse: ²⁷ the blessing if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God, which I am commanding you today, ²⁸ and the curse, if you will not obey the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn from the way which I am commanding you today, to go after other gods which you have not known. ²⁹ Now it shall be, when the Lord your God has brought you into the land which you are entering to possess, that you shall put the blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ebal. ³⁰ Are they not on the other side of the Jordan, west where the sun goes down, in the land of the Canaanites, who dwell in the plain opposite Gilgal, beside the oaks of Moreh? ³¹ For you will cross over the Jordan to go in to possess the land which the Lord your God is giving you, and you will possess it, and dwell in it. ³² You must be careful to do all the statutes and judgments which I am setting before you today.

The One Place of Worship

12 These are the statutes and judgments which you shall be careful to observe in the land, which the Lord, the God of your fathers, has given you to possess, all the days that you live on the earth. ² You must utterly destroy all the places where the nations which you will possess served their gods, on the high mountains, and on the hills, and under every green tree. ³ And you shall overthrow their altars, and break their pillars, and burn their Asherah poles^[a] with fire, and you shall cut down the engraved images of their gods, and eliminate their names out of that place.

⁴ You shall not act this way toward the Lord your God. ⁵ But you must seek only the place which the Lord your God shall choose out of all your tribes to establish His name, and there you must go. ⁶ There you shall bring your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, the offerings of your hand, your vows, your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herds and of your flocks. ⁷ There you must eat before the Lord your God, and you shall rejoice in all that you put your hand to, you and your households, where the Lord your God has blessed you.

⁸ You are not to do all the things that we are doing here today, where every man does whatever is right in his own eyes. ⁹ For you have not yet come to the rest and to the inheritance which the Lord your God has given you. ¹⁰ But when you cross the Jordan, and dwell in the land which the Lord your God has given you to inherit, and when He gives you rest from all your enemies round about, so that you dwell in safety, ¹¹ then there will be a place which the Lord your God will choose to cause His name to dwell. There you must bring all that I command you: your burnt offerings, and your sacrifices, your tithes, the offering of your hand, and all your choice vows which you vow to the Lord. ¹² You will rejoice before the Lord your God, you, your sons, your daughters, your male servants, your female servants, and the Levite who is within your gates, for he has no portion or inheritance with you. ¹³ Be careful that you do not offer your burnt offerings in every place that you see. ¹⁴ Rather, in the place which the Lord will choose in one of your tribes, there you must offer your burnt offerings, and there you must do all that I command you.

¹⁵ Notwithstanding, you may kill and eat meat within all your gates, whatever your heart desires, according to the blessing of the Lord your God which He has given you. The unclean and the clean may eat of it, of the gazelle and of the deer, ¹⁶ only you must not eat the blood. You shall pour it on the ground like water. ¹⁷ You may not eat within your gates the tithe of your grain, your wine, your oil, the firstborn of your herds or of your flock, any of your vows which you vow, your freewill offerings, or the offering of your hand. ¹⁸ Rather you must eat them before the Lord your God in the place which the Lord your God will choose—you, your son, your daughter, your male servant, your female servant, and the Levite that is within your gates—and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God in all that you undertake to do. ¹⁹ Take heed to yourself that you do not forsake the Levite as long as you live on the earth.

²⁰ When the Lord your God shall enlarge your border as He has promised you, and you say, “I will eat meat,” because you desire to eat meat, then you may eat as much meat as your heart desires. ²¹ If the place which the Lord your God has chosen to put His name is too far from you, then you shall kill of your herd and of your flock, which the Lord has given you, as I have commanded you, and you must eat in your gates whatever your heart desires. ²² Even as the gazelle and the deer are eaten, so you shall eat them. The unclean and the clean shall eat of them alike. ²³ Only be sure that you do not eat the blood. For the blood is the life, and you may not eat the life with the meat. ²⁴ You must not eat it. You must pour it on the ground like water. ²⁵ You must not eat it, so that it may go well with you and with your children after you, when you do that which is right in the sight of the Lord.

²⁶ You shall take only your holy things which you have, along with your vows, and go to the place which the Lord shall choose. ²⁷ You must offer your burnt offerings, the meat and the blood, on the altar of the Lord your God, and the blood of your sacrifices will be poured out on the altar of the Lord your God, and you shall eat the meat. ²⁸ Observe and hear all these words which I command you, so that it may go well with you and with your children after you forever, when you do that which is good and right in the sight of the Lord your God.

²⁹ When the Lord your God shall cut off the nations from before you, where you go to possess them, and you dispossess them, and dwell in their land, ³⁰ take heed to yourself so that you are not ensnared by following them, after they have been destroyed before you, and that you not inquire after their gods, saying, “How did these nations serve their gods? Even so I will do likewise.” ³¹ You shall not do so to the Lord your God, for every abomination to the Lord, which He hates, they have done to their gods. They have even burned their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods.

³² Whatever I command you, be careful to do it. You shall not add to it or take away from it.

Idolatry

13 If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, ² and the sign or the wonder comes to pass concerning that which he spoke to you, saying, “Let us go after other gods,” which you have not known, “and let us serve them,” ³ you must not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams, for the Lord your God is testing you, to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. ⁴ You must follow after the Lord your God, fear Him, and keep His commandments, obey His voice, and you must serve Him, and cling to Him. ⁵ That prophet or that dreamer of dreams must be put to death because he has spoken in order to turn you away from the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, to entice you away from the way in which the Lord your God commanded you to walk. So you must put the evil away from your midst.

⁶ If your brother, the son of your mother, or your son, or your daughter, or your beloved wife, or your friend, who is as your own soul, entices you secretly, saying, “Let us go and serve other gods,” which you have not known, neither you nor your fathers, ⁷ namely, of the gods of the people who are all around you, near you or far away from you, from one end of the earth to the other end of the earth, ⁸ you shall not consent to him or listen to him, neither should your eye pity him, nor shall you spare or conceal him, ⁹ but you must surely kill him. Your hand must be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards, the hand of all the people. ¹⁰ You shall stone him with stones so that he dies because he has sought to entice you away from the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage. ¹¹ All Israel shall hear and fear and no more do any such wickedness as this among you.

¹² If you hear it said in one of your cities, in which the Lord your God has given you to dwell, saying, ¹³ “Certain men, the sons of wickedness, are gone out from among you and have seduced the inhabitants of their city, saying, ‘Let us go and serve other gods,’ ” which you have not known, ¹⁴ then you shall inquire, search out, and ask diligently. If it be true and certain that such an abomination has been among you, ¹⁵ you shall surely put the inhabitants of that city to the sword, utterly destroying it, all that is in it and its livestock—with the edge of the sword. ¹⁶ You must gather all the spoils of it into the middle of the street and burn the city with fire along with all the spoils within it for the Lord your God, and it will be a heap forever. It must not be rebuilt. ¹⁷ Nothing of the cursed thing there must cling to your hand, so that the Lord may turn from the fierceness of His anger and show you mercy, have compassion on you, and multiply you, just as He swore to your fathers, ¹⁸ if you listen to the voice of the Lord your God, to keep all His commandments which I command you today, and do that which is right in the eyes of the Lord your God.