Deuteronomy 12:1-Deuteronomy 26:19 - Detailed Stipulations: Purity And Unity

¹ These are the statutes and rights which ye shall keep to do them in the land which the LORD God of thy fathers gives thee to inherit all the days that ye live upon the land. ² Ye shall utterly destroy all the places, upon which the Gentiles, of whom ye shall inherit, served their gods, upon the high mountains and upon the hills and under every green tree; ³ and ye shall overthrow their altars and break their images and burn their groves with fire; and ye shall hew down the statues of their gods and destroy the names of them out of that place. ⁴ Ye shall not do so unto the LORD your God. ⁵ But ye shall seek the place which the LORD your God shall choose out of all your tribes to put his name there for his habitation, and thou shalt go there. ⁶ And there ye shall bring your burnt offerings and your sacrifices and your tithes and the offerings of your hand and your vows and your freewill offerings and the firstborn of your cows and of your sheep; ⁷ and there ye shall eat before the LORD your God, and ye and your households shall rejoice in every work of your hands in which the LORD thy God has blessed thee.

⁸ Ye shall not do after all the things that we do here this day, each man doing what seems right in his own eyes, ⁹ For ye are not as yet come to the rest and to the inheritance, which the LORD your God gives you. ¹⁰ But when ye pass the Jordan and dwell in the land which the LORD your God gives you to inherit and when he gives you rest from all your enemies round about, so that ye dwell in safety, ¹¹ then there shall be a place which the LORD your God shall choose to cause his name to dwell there; there shall ye bring all that I command you: your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and the offerings of your hand and all your choice of vows which ye vow unto the LORD; ¹² and ye shall rejoice before the LORD your God, ye and your sons and your daughters and your menslaves and your maidslaves and the Levite that is within your gates because he has no part nor inheritance with you. ¹³ Keep thyself that thou not offer thy burnt offerings in any place that thou seest ¹⁴ but in the place which the LORD shall choose in one of thy tribes; there thou shalt offer thy burnt offerings, and there thou shalt do all that I command thee.

¹⁵ Notwithstanding, thou may kill and eat flesh in all thy gates, according to the desire of thy soul, according to the blessing of the LORD thy God which he has given thee; the unclean and the clean may eat thereof, as of the roebuck and as of the hart. ¹⁶ Only ye shall not eat the blood; ye shall pour it upon the earth as water. ¹⁷ Thou may not eat within thy gates the tithe of thy grain or of thy wine or of thy oil or the firstborn of thy cows or of thy sheep nor any of thy vows which thou hast promised nor thy freewill offerings or the heave offerings of thy hands. ¹⁸ But thou must eat them before the LORD thy God in the place which the LORD thy God shall have chosen, thou and thy son and thy daughter and thy manslave and thy maidslave and the Levite that is within thy gates; and thou shalt rejoice before the LORD thy God in all the work of thy hands. ¹⁹ Keep thyself that thou not forsake the Levite in all thy days upon thy land.

²⁰ When the LORD thy God shall enlarge thy border, as he has promised thee, and thou shalt say, I will eat flesh, because thy soul desires to eat flesh, according to all the desire of thy soul thou shalt eat flesh. ²¹ When the place which the LORD thy God shall have chosen to put his name there is far from thee, then thou shalt kill of thy cows and of thy sheep, which the LORD has given thee, as I have commanded thee, and thou shalt eat in thy gates according to all thy soul desires. ²² Even as the roebuck and the hart is eaten, so thou shalt eat them; the unclean and the clean shall eat of them alike. ²³ Only be sure not to eat the blood; for the blood is the soul (or the life), and thou art not to eat the soul with its flesh. ²⁴ Thou shalt not eat it; thou shalt pour it upon the earth as water. ²⁵ Thou shalt not eat it that it may go well with thee and with thy children after thee, when thou shalt do that which is right in the sight of the LORD.

²⁶ But the things which thou hast consecrated and thy vows, thou shalt take and go unto the place which the LORD shall have chosen, ²⁷ and thou shalt offer thy burnt offerings, the flesh and the blood, upon the altar of the LORD thy God, and the blood of thy sacrifices shall be poured out upon the altar of the LORD thy God, and thou shalt eat the flesh. ²⁸ Keep and hear all these words which I command thee that it may go well with thee and with thy children after thee for ever, when thou doest that which is good and right in the sight of the LORD thy God.

²⁹ When the LORD thy God shall have cut off the Gentiles from before thee, in the place where thou goest to inherit of them, and thou dost inherit of them and dost dwell in their land, ³⁰ keep thyself from being snared by following them, after they are destroyed from before thee; enquire not after their gods, saying, After the manner that these Gentiles served their gods, even so will I do likewise. ³¹ Thou shalt not do so unto the LORD thy God; for every abomination unto the LORD, which he hates, they have done unto their gods; for they have even burnt their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods. ³² Keep thyself, and do all that I command you; thou shalt not add to it nor diminish from it.

¹ When there arises among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and gives thee a sign or a wonder, ² and the sign or the wonder comes to pass, of which he spoke unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them, ³ thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams; for the LORD your God proves you, to know whether ye love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul. ⁴ Ye shall walk after the LORD your God and fear him and keep his commandments and hear his voice, and ye shall serve him and cleave unto him. ⁵ And that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death because he has spoken rebellion against the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and ransomed you out of the house of slavery, to thrust thee out of the way which the LORD thy God commanded thee to walk in. So shalt thou put the evil away from the midst of thee.

⁶ If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son or thy daughter or the wife of thy bosom or thy friend who is as thine own soul should entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou nor thy fathers have known, ⁷ namely, of the gods of the peoples who are round about you, near unto thee or far off from thee, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth, ⁸ thou shalt not consent with him nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him; neither shalt thou have compassion; neither shalt thou conceal him, ⁹ but thou must kill him; thy hand shall be first upon him to put him to death and afterwards the hand of all the people. ¹⁰ And thou must stone him with stones, and he shall die because he has sought to thrust thee away from the LORD thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt from the house of slavery; ¹¹ so that all Israel shall hear and fear and shall do no more any such wickedness as this is among you.

¹² If thou shalt hear in one of thy cities, which the LORD thy God has given thee to dwell there, that it is said, ¹³ certain men, the sons of Belial, are gone out from among you and have incited the inhabitants of their city, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which ye have not known, ¹⁴ then shalt thou enquire and search and ask diligently; and, behold, if it is the truth and the thing certain that such abomination is wrought among you, ¹⁵ thou shalt surely smite the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, destroying it utterly with all that is therein and the beasts thereof, with the edge of the sword. ¹⁶ And thou shalt gather all the spoil of it into the midst of its plaza and shalt burn the city with fire and all the spoil thereof, all of it, unto the LORD thy God; and it shall be a heap for ever; it shall never be built again. ¹⁷ And none of the anathema shall cleave to thine hand that the LORD may turn from the fierceness of his anger and show thee mercy and have compassion upon thee and multiply thee, as he has sworn unto thy fathers, ¹⁸ when thou shalt hearken to the voice of the LORD thy God, keeping all his commandments which I command thee this day, to do that which is right in the eyes of the LORD thy God.

¹ Ye are the sons of the LORD your God: ye shall not cut yourselves nor make any baldness over your eyes for the dead. ² For thou art a holy people unto the LORD thy God, and the LORD has chosen thee to be a unique people unto himself from among all the peoples that are upon the face of the earth.

³ Thou shalt not eat any abominable thing. ⁴ These are the animals which ye shall eat: the ox, the sheep, and the goat, ⁵ the hart and the roebuck and the buffalo and the wild goat and the unicorn (rhinoceros) and the wild ox and the mountain goat,

⁶ and every animal that parts the hoof and cleaves the cleft into two claws and chews the cud among the beasts that ye shall eat. ⁷ Nevertheless these ye shall not eat of those that chew the cud or of those that divide the cloven hoof: the camel and the hare and the coney, for they chew the cud, but do not divide the hoof; therefore they are unclean unto you; ⁸ and the swine, because it divides the hoof, yet does not chew the cud, it is unclean unto you. Ye shall not eat of their flesh nor touch their dead carcase.

⁹ These ye shall eat of all that are in the waters: all that have fins and scales shall ye eat, ¹⁰ but whatever does not have fins and scales ye may not eat; it is unclean unto you. ¹¹ Of all clean birds ye shall eat. ¹² But these are they of which ye shall not eat: the eagle and the ossifrage and the ospray ¹³ and the glede and the kite and the vulture after his kind ¹⁴ and every raven after his kind ¹⁵ and the owl and the night hawk and the cuckow and the hawk after his kind ¹⁶ the little owl and the great owl and the swan ¹⁷ and the pelican and the gier eagle and the cormorant ¹⁸ and the stork and the heron after her kind and the lapwing and the bat.

¹⁹ And every serpent that flies shall be unclean unto you; they shall not be eaten. ²⁰ But of all clean fowls ye may eat.

²¹ Ye shall not eat of any thing that died of itself; thou shalt give it unto the stranger that is in thy gates that he may eat it, or thou may sell it unto an alien; for thou art a holy people unto the LORD thy God. Thou shalt not cook a kid in his mother's milk.

²² Thou shalt without fail tithe all the increase of thy seed that thy field brings forth each year. ²³ And thou shalt eat before the LORD thy God in the place which he shall choose for his name to dwell, the tithe of thy grain, of thy wine, and of thine oil, and the firstborn of thy cows and of thy sheep, that thou may learn to fear the LORD thy God always. ²⁴ And if the way is too long for thee, so that thou art not able to carry it, or if the place is too far from thee, which the LORD thy God shall choose to set his name there, when the LORD thy God has blessed thee, ²⁵ then shalt thou sell it for money and bind up the money in thy hand and shalt go unto the place which the LORD thy God shall choose; ²⁶ and thou shalt give that money for whatever thy soul desires, for cows or for sheep or for wine or for strong drink or for whatever thy soul desires; and thou shalt eat there before the LORD thy God, and thou shalt rejoice, thou and thine household. ²⁷ And thou shalt not forsake the Levite that dwells within thy gates, for he has no part nor inheritance with thee.

²⁸ At the end of three years thou shalt bring forth all the tithe of thine increase the same year and shalt lay it up within thy gates. ²⁹ And the Levite, who has no part nor inheritance with thee, and the stranger and the fatherless and the widow who are within thy gates, shall come and shall eat and be satisfied, that the LORD thy God may bless thee in all the work of thy hands which thou doest.

¹ At the end of every seven years thou shalt make a release. ² And this is the manner of the release: everyone who has lent anything to his neighbour, causing him to be in debt, shall release it; he shall not exact it any more of his neighbour or of his brother, because the release of the LORD is proclaimed. ³ Of the foreigner thou shalt demand that it be repaid; but that which thy brother has of thine thy hand shall release,

⁴ so that thus there shall be no poor among you, for the LORD shall greatly bless thee in the land which the LORD thy God gives thee for an inheritance to possess it; ⁵ only if thou carefully hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to keep and to do all these commandments which I command thee this day. ⁶ For when the LORD thy God has blessed thee, as he promised thee, thou shalt lend unto many Gentiles, but thou shalt not borrow; and thou shalt rule over many Gentiles, but they shall not rule over thee.

⁷ If there should be among you a poor man of one of thy brethren within any of thy towns in thy land which the LORD thy God gives thee, thou shalt not harden thine heart nor shut thine hand from thy poor brother, ⁸ but thou shalt open thine hand wide unto him and shalt surely lend him sufficient for his need, in that which he lacks. ⁹ Keep thyself that there not be a thought of Belial in thy heart, saying, The seventh year, the year of release, is at hand; and thine eye be evil against thy poor brother to give him nothing; for he shall cry unto the LORD against thee, and it shall be a sin unto thee. ¹⁰ Thou shalt surely give unto him, and thine heart shall not be grieved when thou givest unto him because for this thing the LORD thy God shall bless thee in all thy works and in all that thou puttest thine hand to. ¹¹ For the poor shall never cease out of the land; therefore, I command thee, saying, Thou shalt open thine hand wide unto thy brother, to thy poor and to thy needy, in thy land.

¹² And if thy brother, a Hebrew man, or a Hebrew woman, is sold unto thee and serves thee six years, then in the seventh year thou shalt send him forth from thee free. ¹³ And when thou sendest him out free from thee, thou shalt not send him away empty. ¹⁴ Thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy flock and out of thy threshing floor and out of thy winepress; of that with which the LORD thy God has blessed thee thou shalt give unto him. ¹⁵ And thou shalt remember that thou wast a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD thy God ransomed thee; therefore, I command thee this thing to day. ¹⁶ And it shall be, if he says unto thee, I will not go away from thee because he loves thee and thy house because he is well with thee, ¹⁷ then thou shalt take an aul and thrust it through his ear unto the door, and he shall be thy slave for ever. And also unto thy maidservant thou shalt do likewise. ¹⁸ It shall not seem hard unto thee when thou sendest him away free from thee, for he has served thee for half the cost of a hired servant for six years; and the LORD thy God shall bless thee in all that thou doest.

¹⁹ All the firstborn males that come of thy herd and of thy flock thou shalt sanctify unto the LORD thy God; thou shalt do no work with the firstborn of thy bullock nor shear the firstborn of thy sheep. ²⁰ Thou shalt eat it before the LORD thy God each year in the place which the LORD shall choose, thou and thy household. ²¹ And if there is any blemish in it, if it is lame or blind or has any ill blemish, thou shalt not sacrifice it unto the LORD thy God. ²² Thou shalt eat it within thy gates; the unclean and the clean person shall eat it alike, as the roebuck and as the hart.