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

¹ These are the statutes and ordinances you must be careful to obey as long as you live in the land the Lord, the God of your ancestors, has given you to possess. ² You must by all means destroy all the places where the nations you are about to dispossess worship their gods -- on the high mountains and hills and under every leafy tree. ³ You must tear down their altars, shatter their sacred pillars, burn up their sacred Asherah poles, and cut down the images of their gods; you must eliminate their very memory from that place. ⁴ You must not worship the Lord your God the way they worship. ⁵ But you must seek only the place he chooses from all your tribes to establish his name as his place of residence, and you must go there. ⁶ And there you must take your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, the personal offerings you have prepared, your votive offerings, your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks. ⁷ Both you and your families must feast there before the Lord your God and rejoice in all the output of your labor with which he has blessed you.

⁸ You must not do like we are doing here today, with everyone doing what seems best to him, ⁹ for you have not yet come to the final stop and inheritance the Lord your God is giving you. ¹⁰ When you do go across the Jordan River and settle in the land he is granting you as an inheritance and you find relief from all the enemies who surround you, you will live in safety. ¹¹ Then you must come to the place the Lord your God chooses for his name to reside, bringing everything I am commanding you -- your burnt offerings, sacrifices, tithes, the personal offerings you have prepared, and all your choice votive offerings which you devote to him. ¹² You shall rejoice in the presence of the Lord your God, along with your sons, daughters, male and female servants, and the Levites in your villages (since they have no allotment or inheritance with you). ¹³ Make sure you do not offer burnt offerings in any place you wish, ¹⁴ for you may do so only in the place the Lord chooses in one of your tribal areas -- there you may do everything I am commanding you.

¹⁵ On the other hand, you may slaughter and eat meat as you please when the Lord your God blesses you in all your villages. Both the ritually pure and impure may eat it, whether it is a gazelle or an ibex. ¹⁶ However, you must not eat blood -- pour it out on the ground like water. ¹⁷ You will not be allowed to eat in your villages your tithe of grain, new wine, olive oil, the firstborn of your herd and flock, any votive offerings you have vowed, or your freewill and personal offerings. ¹⁸ Only in the presence of the Lord your God may you eat these, in the place he chooses. This applies to you, your son, your daughter, your male and female servants, and the Levites in your villages. In that place you will rejoice before the Lord your God in all the output of your labor. ¹⁹ Be careful not to overlook the Levites as long as you live in the land.

²⁰ When the Lord your God extends your borders as he said he would do and you say, "I want to eat meat just as I please," you may do so as you wish. ²¹ If the place he chooses to locate his name is too far for you, you may slaughter any of your herd and flock he has given you just as I have stipulated; you may eat them in your villages just as you wish. ²² Like you eat the gazelle or ibex, so you may eat these; the ritually impure and pure alike may eat them. ²³ However, by no means eat the blood, for the blood is life itself -- you must not eat the life with the meat! ²⁴ You must not eat it! You must pour it out on the ground like water. ²⁵ You must not eat it so that it may go well with you and your children after you; you will be doing what is right in the Lord's sight.

²⁶ Only the holy things and votive offerings that belong to you, you must pick up and take to the place the Lord will choose. ²⁷ You must offer your burnt offerings, both meat and blood, on the altar of the Lord your God; the blood of your other sacrifices you must pour out on his altar while you eat the meat. ²⁸ Pay careful attention to all these things I am commanding you so that it may always go well with you and your children after you when you do what is good and right in the sight of the Lord your God.

²⁹ When the Lord your God eliminates the nations from the place where you are headed and you dispossess them, you will settle down in their land. ³⁰ After they have been destroyed from your presence, be careful not to be ensnared like they are; do not pursue their gods and say, "How do these nations serve their gods? I will do the same." ³¹ You must not worship the Lord your God the way they do! For everything that is abhorrent to him, everything he hates, they have done when worshiping their gods. They even burn up their sons and daughters before their gods! ³² You must be careful to do everything I am commanding you. Do not add to it or subtract from it!

¹ Suppose a prophet or one who foretells by dreams should appear among you and show you a sign or wonder, ² and the sign or wonder should come to pass concerning what he said to you, namely, "Let us follow other gods" -- gods whom you have not previously known -- "and let us serve them." ³ You must not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer, for the Lord your God will be testing you to see if you love him with all your mind and being. ⁴ You must follow the Lord your God and revere only him; and you must observe his commandments, obey him, serve him, and remain loyal to him. ⁵ As for that prophet or dreamer, he must be executed because he encouraged rebellion against the Lord your God who brought you from the land of Egypt, redeeming you from that place of slavery, and because he has tried to entice you from the way the Lord your God has commanded you to go. In this way you must purge out evil from within.

⁶ Suppose your own full brother, your son, your daughter, your beloved wife, or your closest friend should seduce you secretly and encourage you to go and serve other gods that neither you nor your ancestors have previously known, ⁷ the gods of the surrounding people (whether near you or far from you, from one end of the earth to the other). ⁸ You must not give in to him or even listen to him; do not feel sympathy for him or spare him or cover up for him. ⁹ Instead, you must kill him without fail! Your own hand must be the first to strike him, and then the hands of the whole community. ¹⁰ You must stone him to death because he tried to entice you away from the Lord your God, who delivered you from the land of Egypt, that place of slavery. ¹¹ Thus all Israel will hear and be afraid; no longer will they continue to do evil like this among you.

¹² Suppose you should hear in one of your cities, which the Lord your God is giving you as a place to live, that ¹³ some evil people have departed from among you to entice the inhabitants of their cities, saying, "Let's go and serve other gods" (whom you have not known before). ¹⁴ You must investigate thoroughly and inquire carefully. If it is indeed true that such a disgraceful thing is being done among you, ¹⁵ you must by all means slaughter the inhabitants of that city with the sword; annihilate with the sword everyone in it, as well as the livestock. ¹⁶ You must gather all of its plunder into the middle of the plaza and burn the city and all its plunder as a whole burnt offering to the Lord your God. It will be an abandoned ruin forever -- it must never be rebuilt again. ¹⁷ You must not take for yourself anything that has been placed under judgment. Then the Lord will relent from his intense anger, show you compassion, have mercy on you, and multiply you as he promised your ancestors. ¹⁸ Thus you must obey the Lord your God, keeping all his commandments that I am giving you today and doing what is right before him.

¹ You are children of the Lord your God. Do not cut yourselves or shave your forehead bald for the sake of the dead. ² For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. He has chosen you to be his people, prized above all others on the face of the earth.

³ You must not eat any forbidden thing. ⁴ These are the animals you may eat: the ox, the sheep, the goat, ⁵ the ibex, the gazelle, the deer, the wild goat, the antelope, the wild oryx, and the mountain sheep.

⁶ You may eat any animal that has hooves divided into two parts and that chews the cud. ⁷ However, you may not eat the following animals among those that chew the cud or those that have divided hooves: the camel, the hare, and the rock badger. (Although they chew the cud, they do not have divided hooves and are therefore ritually impure to you). ⁸ Also the pig is ritually impure to you; though it has divided hooves, it does not chew the cud. You may not eat their meat or even touch their remains.

⁹ These you may eat from among water creatures: anything with fins and scales you may eat, ¹⁰ but whatever does not have fins and scales you may not eat; it is ritually impure to you. ¹¹ All ritually clean birds you may eat. ¹² These are the ones you may not eat: the eagle, the vulture, the black vulture, ¹³ the kite, the black kite, the dayyah after its species, ¹⁴ every raven after its species, ¹⁵ the ostrich, the owl, the seagull, the falcon after its species, ¹⁶ the little owl, the long-eared owl, the white owl, ¹⁷ the jackdaw, the carrion vulture, the cormorant, ¹⁸ the stork, the heron after its species, the hoopoe, the bat,

¹⁹ and any winged thing on the ground are impure to you -- they may not be eaten. ²⁰ You may eat any clean bird.

²¹ You may not eat any corpse, though you may give it to the resident foreigner who is living in your villages and he may eat it, or you may sell it to a foreigner. You are a people holy to the Lord your God. Do not boil a young goat in its mother's milk.

²² You must be certain to tithe all the produce of your seed that comes from the field year after year. ²³ In the presence of the Lord your God you must eat from the tithe of your grain, your new wine, your olive oil, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks in the place he chooses to locate his name, so that you may learn to revere the Lord your God always. ²⁴ When he blesses you, if the place where he chooses to locate his name is distant, ²⁵ you may convert the tithe into money, secure the money, and travel to the place the Lord your God chooses for himself. ²⁶ Then you may spend the money however you wish for cattle, sheep, wine, beer, or whatever you desire. You and your household may eat there in the presence of the Lord your God and enjoy it. ²⁷ As for the Levites in your villages, you must not ignore them, for they have no allotment or inheritance along with you.

²⁸ At the end of every three years you must bring all the tithe of your produce, in that very year, and you must store it up in your villages. ²⁹ Then the Levites (because they have no allotment or inheritance with you), the resident foreigners, the orphans, and the widows of your villages may come and eat their fill so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work you do.

¹ At the end of every seven years you must declare a cancellation of debts. ² This is the nature of the cancellation: Every creditor must remit what he has loaned to another person; he must not force payment from his fellow Israelite, for it is to be recognized as "the Lord's cancellation of debts." ³ You may exact payment from a foreigner, but whatever your fellow Israelite owes you, you must remit.

⁴ However, there should not be any poor among you, for the Lord will surely bless you in the land that he is giving you as an inheritance, ⁵ if you carefully obey him by keeping all these commandments that I am giving you today. ⁶ For the Lord your God will bless you just as he has promised; you will lend to many nations but will not borrow from any, and you will rule over many nations but they will not rule over you.

⁷ If a fellow Israelite from one of your villages in the land that the Lord your God is giving you should be poor, you must not harden your heart or be insensitive to his impoverished condition. ⁸ Instead, you must be sure to open your hand to him and generously lend him whatever he needs. ⁹ Be careful lest you entertain the wicked thought that the seventh year, the year of cancellation of debts, has almost arrived, and your attitude be wrong toward your impoverished fellow Israelite and you do not lend him anything; he will cry out to the Lord against you and you will be regarded as having sinned. ¹⁰ You must by all means lend to him and not be upset by doing it, for because of this the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in everything you attempt. ¹¹ There will never cease to be some poor people in the land; therefore, I am commanding you to make sure you open your hand to your fellow Israelites who are needy and poor in your land.

¹² If your fellow Hebrew -- whether male or female -- is sold to you and serves you for six years, then in the seventh year you must let that servant go free. ¹³ If you set them free, you must not send them away empty-handed. ¹⁴ You must supply them generously from your flock, your threshing floor, and your winepress -- as the Lord your God has blessed you, you must give to them. ¹⁵ Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you; therefore, I am commanding you to do this thing today. ¹⁶ However, if the servant says to you, "I do not want to leave you," because he loves you and your household, since he is well off with you, ¹⁷ you shall take an awl and pierce a hole through his ear to the door. Then he will become your servant permanently (this applies to your female servant as well). ¹⁸ You should not consider it difficult to let him go free, for he will have served you for six years, twice the time of a hired worker; the Lord your God will bless you in everything you do.

¹⁹ You must set apart for the Lord your God every firstborn male born to your herds and flocks. You must not work the firstborn of your bulls or shear the firstborn of your flocks. ²⁰ You and your household must eat them annually before the Lord your God in the place he chooses. ²¹ If they have any kind of blemish -- lameness, blindness, or anything else -- you may not offer them as a sacrifice to the Lord your God. ²² You may eat it in your villages, whether you are ritually impure or clean, just as you would eat a gazelle or an ibex.