Deuteronomy 11-17
New American Standard Bible
Chapter 11
1You shall therefore love the Lord your God, and always keep His directive, His statutes, His ordinances, and His commandments. 2Know this day that I am not speaking with your sons who have not known and who have not seen the discipline of the Lord your God—His greatness, His mighty hand, His outstretched arm, 3and His signs and His works which He did in the midst of Egypt to Pharaoh the king of Egypt and to all his land; 4and what He did to Egypt’s army, to its horses and its chariots, when He made the water of the Red Sea engulf them while they were pursuing you, and the Lord completely eliminated them; 5and what He did to you in the wilderness, until you came to this place; 6and what He did to Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, the son of Reuben, when the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them, their households, their tents, and every living thing that followed them, among all Israel— 7but your own eyes have seen all the great work of the Lord which He did.
8You shall therefore keep every commandment which I am commanding you today, so that you may be strong and go in and take possession of the land into which you are about to cross to possess it;
9and so that you may prolong your days on the land which the Lord swore to your fathers to give to them and to their descendants, a land flowing with milk and honey.
10For the land, into which you are entering to possess it, is not like the land of Egypt from which you came, where you used to sow your seed and water it by your foot like a vegetable garden.
11But the land into which you are about to cross to possess it, a land of hills and valleys, drinks water from the rain of heaven,
12a land for which the Lord your God cares; the eyes of the Lord your God are continually on it, from the beginning even to the end of the year.
13And it shall come about, if you listen obediently to my commandments which I am commanding you today, to love the Lord your God and to serve Him with all your heart and all your soul,
14that He will provide rain for your land in its season, the early and late rain, so that you may gather your grain, your new wine, and your oil.
15He will also provide grass in your field for your cattle, and you will eat and be satisfied.
16Beware that your hearts are not easily deceived, and that you do not turn away and serve other gods, and worship them.
17Otherwise, the anger of the Lord will be kindled against you, and He will shut up the sky so that there will be no rain, and the ground will not yield its produce; then you will quickly perish from the good land which the Lord is giving you.
18You shall therefore take these words of mine to heart and to soul; and you shall tie them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets on your forehead.
19You shall also teach them to your sons, speaking of them when you sit in your house, when you walk along the road, when you lie down, and when you get up.
20And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates,
21so that your days and the days of your sons may be increased on the land which the Lord swore to your fathers to give them, as long as the heavens are above the earth.
22For if you are careful to keep all of this commandment which I am commanding you to do, to love the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways and cling to Him,
23then the Lord will dispossess all these nations from you, and you will dispossess nations greater and mightier than you.
24Every place on which the sole of your foot steps shall be yours; your border will be from the wilderness to Lebanon, and from the river, the river Euphrates, as far as the western sea.
25No one will be able to stand against you; the Lord your God will instill the dread of you and the fear of you in all the land on which you set foot, just as He has spoken to you.
26See, I am placing before you today a blessing and a curse:
27the blessing, if you listen to the commandments of the Lord your God, which I am commanding you today;
28and the curse, if you do not listen to the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn aside from the way which I am commanding you today, by following other gods which you have not known.
29And it shall come about, when the Lord your God brings you into the land where you are entering to possess it, that you shall place the blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ebal.
30Are they not across the Jordan, west of the road toward the sunset, in the land of the Canaanites who live in the Arabah, opposite Gilgal, beside the oaks of Moreh?
31For you are about to cross the Jordan to go in to take possession of the land which the Lord your God is giving you, and you shall possess it and live in it,
32and you shall be careful to do all the statutes and the judgments which I am placing before you today.
Chapter 12
1These are the statutes and the judgments which you shall carefully follow in the land which the Lord, the God of your fathers, has given you to possess as long as you live on the earth. 2You shall utterly destroy all the places where the nations whom you are going to dispossess serve their gods, on the high mountains, on the hills, and under every leafy tree. 3And you shall tear down their altars and smash their memorial stones to pieces, and burn their Asherim in the fire, and cut to pieces the carved images of their gods; and you shall eliminate their name from that place. 4You shall not act this way toward the Lord your God. 5But you shall seek the Lord at the place which the Lord your God will choose from all your tribes, to establish His name there for His dwelling, and you shall come there. 6You shall bring there your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, the contribution of your hand, your vowed offerings, your voluntary offerings, and the firstborn of your herd and of your flock. 7There you and your households shall eat before the Lord your God, and rejoice in all your undertakings in which the Lord your God has blessed you.
8You shall not do at all what we are doing here today, everyone doing whatever is right in his own eyes;
9for you have not as yet come to the resting place and the inheritance which the Lord your God is giving you.
10When you cross the Jordan and live in the land which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, and He gives you rest from all your enemies around you so that you live in security,
11then it shall come about that the place in which the Lord your God will choose for His name to dwell, there you shall bring everything that I command you: your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and the contribution of your hand, and all your choice vowed offerings which you will vow to the Lord.
12And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God, you and your sons and daughters, your male and female slaves, and the Levite who is within your gates, since he has no portion or inheritance with you.
13Be careful that you do not offer your burnt offerings in any cultic place that you see,
14but only in the place which the Lord chooses in one of your tribes: there you shall offer your burnt offerings, and there you shall do everything that I command you.
15However, you may slaughter and eat meat within any of your gates, whatever you desire, according to the blessing of the Lord your God which He has given you; the unclean and the clean alike may eat it, as the gazelle and the deer.
16Only you shall not eat the blood; you are to pour it out on the ground like water.
17You are not allowed to eat within your gates the tithe of your grain, new wine, or oil, or the firstborn of your herd or flock, or any of your vowed offerings which you vow, or your voluntary offerings, or the contribution of your hand.
18But you shall eat them before the Lord your God in the place which the Lord your God will choose, you and your son and daughter, and your male and female slaves, and the Levite who is within your gates; and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God in all your undertakings.
19Be careful that you do not abandon the Levite as long as you live in your land.
20When the Lord your God extends your border as He has promised you, and you say, ‘I will eat meat,’ because you desire to eat meat, then you may eat meat, whatever you desire.
21If the place where the Lord your God chooses to put His name is too far from you, then you may slaughter animals from your herd and flock which the Lord has given you, as I have commanded you; and you may eat within your gates whatever you desire.
22Just as a gazelle or a deer is eaten, so you may eat it; the unclean and the clean alike may eat it.
23Only be sure not to eat the blood, for the blood is the life, and you shall not eat the life with the flesh.
24You shall not eat it; you shall pour it out on the ground like water.
25You shall not eat it, so that it may go well for you and your sons after you, since you will be doing what is right in the sight of the Lord.
26Only your holy things which you may have and your vowed offerings, you shall take and go to the place which the Lord chooses.
27And you shall offer your burnt offerings, the flesh and the blood, on the altar of the Lord your God; and the blood of your sacrifices shall be poured out on the altar of the Lord your God, and you shall eat the flesh.
29When the Lord your God cuts off from you the nations which you are going in to dispossess, and you dispossess them and live in their land,
30be careful that you are not ensnared to follow them, after they are destroyed from your presence, and that you do not inquire about their gods, saying, ‘How do these nations serve their gods, that I also may do likewise?’
31You shall not behave this way toward the Lord your God, because every abominable act which the Lord hates, they have done for their gods; for they even burn their sons and daughters in the fire for their gods.
Chapter 13
1If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, 2and the sign or the wonder comes true, of which he spoke to you, saying, ‘Let’s follow other gods (whom you have not known) and let’s serve them,’ 3you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer of dreams; for the Lord your God is testing you to find out whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. 4You shall follow the Lord your God and fear Him; and you shall keep His commandments, listen to His voice, serve Him, and cling to Him. 5But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he has spoken falsely against the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of slavery, to drive you from the way in which the Lord your God commanded you to walk. So you shall eliminate the evil from among you.
6If your brother, your mother’s son, or your son or daughter, or the wife you cherish, or your friend who is like your own soul, entices you secretly, saying, ‘Let’s go and serve other gods’ (whom neither you nor your fathers have known,
7of the gods of the peoples who are around you, near you, or far from you, from one end of the earth to the other end),
8you shall not consent to him or listen to him; and your eye shall not pity him, nor shall you spare or conceal him.
9Instead, you shall most certainly kill him; your hand shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people.
10So you shall stone him to death, because he has attempted to drive you away from the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
11Then all Israel will hear about it and be afraid, and will not do such a wicked thing among you again.
12If you hear in one of your cities, which the Lord your God is giving you to live in, anyone saying that
13some worthless men have gone out from among you and have seduced the inhabitants of their city, saying, ‘Let’s go and serve other gods’ (whom you have not known),
14then you shall investigate, search out, and inquire thoroughly. And if it is true and the matter is certain that this abomination has been committed among you,
15you shall most certainly strike the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword. Utterly destroy it and all who are in it and its cattle, with the edge of the sword.
16Then you shall gather all its plunder into the middle of its public square, and burn the city and all its plunder with fire as a whole burnt offering to the Lord your God; and it shall be a ruin forever. It shall never be rebuilt.
17Nothing at all from what is designated for destruction is to cling to your hand, in order that the Lord may turn from His burning anger and show mercy to you, and have compassion on you and make you increase, just as He has sworn to your fathers,
18if you will listen to the voice of the Lord your God, keeping all His commandments which I am commanding you today, and doing what is right in the sight of the Lord your God.
Chapter 14
1You are sons of the Lord your God; you shall not cut yourselves nor shave a bald spot above your forehead for the dead. 2For you are a holy people to the Lord your God, and the Lord has chosen you to be a people for His personal possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.
3You shall not eat any detestable thing.
4These are the animals that you may eat: the ox, the sheep, the goat,
5the deer, the gazelle, the roebuck, the wild goat, the ibex, the antelope, and the mountain sheep.
6And any animal that has a divided hoof and has its hoofs split in two, and chews the cud, among the animals, that animal you may eat.
7However, you are not to eat these among the ones that chew the cud, or among those that have the hoof divided in two: the camel, the rabbit, and the rock hyrax, for though they chew the cud, they do not have a divided hoof; they are unclean to you.
8And the pig, because it has a divided hoof but does not chew the cud, it is unclean for you. You shall not eat any of their flesh, nor touch their carcasses.
9These you may eat of everything that is in the water: anything that has fins and scales you may eat,
10but anything that does not have fins and scales, you shall not eat; it is unclean for you.
11You may eat any clean bird.
12But these are the ones that you shall not eat: the eagle and the vulture and the buzzard,
13and the red kite, the falcon, and the kite in their kinds,
14and every raven in its kind,
15and the ostrich, the owl, the seagull, and the hawk in their kinds,
16the little owl, the great owl, the white owl,
17the pelican, the carrion vulture, the cormorant,
18the stork, and the heron in their kinds, and the hoopoe and the bat.
19And all the swarming insects with wings are unclean to you; they shall not be eaten.
20You may eat any clean bird.
22You shall certainly tithe all the produce from what you sow, which comes from the field every year.
23You shall eat in the presence of the Lord your God, at the place where He chooses to establish His name, the tithe of your grain, your new wine, your oil, and the firstborn of your herd and your flock, so that you may learn to fear the Lord your God always.
24But if the distance is so great for you that you are not able to bring the tithe, since the place where the Lord your God chooses to set His name is too far away from you when the Lord your God blesses you,
25then you shall exchange it for money, and bind the money in your hand and go to the place which the Lord your God chooses.
26And you may spend the money on whatever your heart desires: on oxen, sheep, wine, other strong drink, or whatever your heart desires; and there you shall eat in the presence of the Lord your God and rejoice, you and your household.
27Also you shall not neglect the Levite who is in your town, for he has no portion or inheritance among you.
28At the end of every third year you shall bring out all the tithe of your produce in that year, and you shall deposit it in your town.
29And the Levite, because he has no portion or inheritance among you, and the stranger, the orphan, and the widow who are in your town, shall come and eat and be satisfied, in order that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hand which you do.
Chapter 15
1At the end of every seven years you shall grant a release of debts. 2And this is the regulation for the release of debts: every creditor is to forgive what he has loaned to his neighbor; he shall not require it of his neighbor and his brother, because the Lord’S release has been proclaimed. 3From a foreigner you may require it, but your hand shall forgive whatever of yours is with your brother. 4However, there will be no poor among you, since the Lord will certainly bless you in the land which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance to possess, 5if only you listen obediently to the voice of the Lord your God, to follow carefully all this commandment which I am commanding you today. 6For the Lord your God will have blessed you just as He has promised you, and you will lend to many nations, but you will not borrow; and you will rule over many nations, but they will not rule over you.
7If there is a poor person among you, one of your brothers, in any of your towns in your land which the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart, nor close your hand from your poor brother;
8but you shall fully open your hand to him, and generously lend him enough for his need in whatever he lacks.
9Be careful that there is no mean-spirited thought in your heart, such as, ‘The seventh year, the year of release of debts, is near,’ and your eye is malicious toward your poor brother, and you give him nothing; then he may cry out to the Lord against you, and it will be a sin in you.
10You shall generously give to him, and your heart shall not be grudging when you give to him, because for this thing the Lord your God will bless you in all your work, and in all your undertakings.
11For the poor will not cease to exist in the land; therefore I am commanding you, saying, ‘You shall fully open your hand to your brother, to your needy and poor in your land.’
12If your fellow countryman, a Hebrew man or woman, is sold to you, then he shall serve you for six years, but in the seventh year you shall set him free.
13And when you set him free, you shall not send him away empty-handed.
14You shall give generously to him from your flock, your threshing floor, and from your wine vat; you shall give to him as the Lord your God has blessed you.
15And you are to remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you; therefore I am commanding this of you today.
16But it shall come about, if he says to you, ‘I will not leave you,’ because he loves you and your household, since he is doing well with you,
17then you shall take an awl and pierce it through his ear into the door, and he shall be your servant permanently. You shall also do the same to your female slave.
19You shall consecrate to the Lord your God all the firstborn males that are born in your herd and in your flock; you shall not work with the firstborn of your herd, nor shear the firstborn of your flock.
20You and your household shall eat it every year before the Lord your God in the place which the Lord chooses.
21But if it has any impairment, such as a limp, or blindness, or any serious impairment, you shall not sacrifice it to the Lord your God.
22You shall eat it within your gates; the unclean and the clean alike may eat it, as a gazelle or a deer.
23Only you shall not eat its blood; you are to pour it out on the ground like water.
Chapter 16
1Observe the month of Abib and celebrate the Passover to the Lord your God, for in the month of Abib the Lord your God brought you out of Egypt by night. 2You shall sacrifice the Passover to the Lord your God from the flock and the herd, in the place where the Lord chooses to establish His name. 3You shall not eat leavened bread with it; for seven days you shall eat unleavened bread with it, the bread of affliction (for you came out of the land of Egypt in a hurry), so that you will remember the day when you came out of the land of Egypt all the days of your life. 4For seven days no leaven shall be seen with you in your entire territory, and none of the meat which you sacrifice on the evening of the first day shall be left overnight until the morning. 5You are not allowed to sacrifice the Passover in any of your towns which the Lord your God is giving you; 6but only at the place where the Lord your God chooses to establish His name, you shall sacrifice the Passover in the evening at sunset, at the time that you came out of Egypt. 7You shall cook and eat it in the place which the Lord your God chooses. In the morning you are to return to your tents. 8For six days you shall eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day there shall be a festive assembly to the Lord your God; you shall do no work on it.
9You shall count seven weeks for yourself; you shall begin to count seven weeks from the time you begin to put the sickle to the standing grain.
10Then you shall celebrate the Feast of Weeks to the Lord your God with a voluntary offering of your hand in a proportional amount, which you shall give just as the Lord your God blesses you;
11and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God, you, your son and your daughter, and your male and female slaves, and the Levite who is in your town, and the stranger, the orphan, and the widow who are in your midst, at the place where the Lord your God chooses to establish His name.
12You shall also remember that you were a slave in Egypt, and you shall be careful and comply with these statutes.
13You shall celebrate the Feast of Booths for seven days when you have gathered in from your threshing floor and your wine vat;
14and you shall rejoice in your feast, you, your son and your daughter, and your male and female slaves, and the Levite, the stranger, the orphan, and the widow who are in your towns.
15For seven days you shall celebrate a feast to the Lord your God in the place which the Lord chooses, because the Lord your God will bless you in all your produce and in all the work of your hands, so that you will be altogether joyful.
16Three times a year all your males shall appear before the Lord your God at the place which He chooses: at the Feast of Unleavened Bread, at the Feast of Weeks, and at the Feast of Booths; and they are not to appear before the Lord empty-handed.
17Everyone shall give as he is able, in accordance with the blessing of the Lord your God which He has given you.
18You shall appoint for yourself judges and officers in all your towns which the Lord your God is giving you, according to your tribes, and they shall judge the people with righteous judgment.
19You shall not distort justice, you shall not show partiality; and you shall not accept a bribe, because a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and distorts the words of the righteous.
20Justice, and only justice, you shall pursue, so that you may live and possess the land which the Lord your God is giving you.
21You shall not plant for yourself an Asherah of any kind of tree beside the altar of the Lord your God, which you shall make for yourself.
22And you shall not set up for yourself a memorial stone, which the Lord your God hates.
2If there is found in your midst, in any of your towns which the Lord your God is giving you, a man or a woman who does what is evil in the sight of the Lord your God, by violating His covenant,
3and that person has gone and served other gods and worshiped them, or the sun, the moon, or any of the heavenly lights, which I have commanded not to do,
4and if it is reported to you and you have heard about it, then you shall investigate thoroughly. And if it is true and the report is trustworthy that this detestable thing has been done in Israel,
5then you are to bring out to your gates that man or woman who has done this evil deed, that is, the man or the woman, and you shall stone them to death.
6On the testimony of two witnesses or three witnesses, the condemned shall be put to death; he shall not be put to death on the testimony of only one witness.
7The hands of the witnesses shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hands of all the people. So you shall eliminate the evil from your midst.
8If a case is too difficult for you to decide, between one kind of homicide or another, between one kind of lawsuit or another, and between one kind of assault or another, that are cases of dispute in your courts, then you shall arise and go up to the place which the Lord your God chooses.
9So you shall come to the Levitical priests or the judge who is in office in those days, and you shall inquire of them and they will declare to you the verdict.
10Then you shall act in accordance with the terms of the verdict which they declare to you from that place which the Lord chooses; and you shall be careful to act in accordance with everything that they instruct you to do.
11In accordance with the terms of the law about which they instruct you, and in accordance with the verdict which they tell you, you shall act; you shall not turn aside from the word which they declare to you, to the right or the left.
12But the person who acts insolently by not listening to the priest who stands there to serve the Lord your God, nor to the judge, that person shall die; so you shall eliminate the evil from Israel.
13Then all the people will hear and be afraid, and will not act insolently again.
14When you enter the land which the Lord your God is giving you, and you take possession of it and live in it, and you say, ‘I will appoint a king over me like all the nations who are around me,’
15you shall in fact appoint a king over you whom the Lord your God chooses. One from among your countrymen you shall appoint as king over yourselves; you may not put a foreigner over yourselves, anyone who is not your countryman.
16In any case, he is not to acquire many horses for himself, nor shall he make the people return to Egypt in order to acquire many horses, since the Lord has said to you, ‘You shall never again return that way.’
17And he shall not acquire many wives for himself, so that his heart does not turn away; nor shall he greatly increase silver and gold for himself.
18Now it shall come about, when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write for himself a copy of this Law on a scroll in the presence of the Levitical priests.
19And it shall be with him, and he shall read it all the days of his life, so that he will learn to fear the Lord his God, by carefully following all the words of this Law and these statutes,
20so that his heart will not be haughty toward his countrymen, and that he will not turn away from the commandment to the right or the left, so that he and his sons may live long in his kingdom in the midst of Israel.
King James Version
Chapter 11
1Therefore thou shalt love the LORD thy God, and keep his charge, and his statutes, and his judgments, and his commandments, alway. 2And know ye this day: for I speak not with your children which have not known, and which have not seen the chastisement of the LORD your God, his greatness, his mighty hand, and his stretched out arm, 3And his miracles, and his acts, which he did in the midst of Egypt unto Pharaoh the king of Egypt, and unto all his land; 4And what he did unto the army of Egypt, unto their horses, and to their chariots; how he made the water of the Red sea to overflow them as they pursued after you, and how the LORD hath destroyed them unto this day; 5And what he did unto you in the wilderness, until ye came into this place; 6And what he did unto Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, the son of Reuben: how the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, and their households, and their tents, and all the substance that was in their possession, in the midst of all Israel: 7But your eyes have seen all the great acts of the LORD which he did.
8Therefore shall ye keep all the commandments which I command you this day, that ye may be strong, and go in and possess the land, whither ye go to possess it;
9And that ye may prolong your days in the land, which the LORD sware unto your fathers to give unto them and to their seed, a land that floweth with milk and honey.
10For the land, whither thou goest in to possess it, is not as the land of Egypt, from whence ye came out, where thou sowedst thy seed, and wateredst it with thy foot, as a garden of herbs:
11But the land, whither ye go to possess it, is a land of hills and valleys, and drinketh water of the rain of heaven:
12A land which the LORD thy God careth for: the eyes of the LORD thy God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year even unto the end of the year.
13And it shall come to pass, if ye shall hearken diligently unto my commandments which I command you this day, to love the LORD your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul,
14That I will give you the rain of your land in his due season, the first rain and the latter rain, that thou mayest gather in thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil.
15And I will send grass in thy fields for thy cattle, that thou mayest eat and be full.
16Take heed to yourselves, that your heart be not deceived, and ye turn aside, and serve other gods, and worship them;
17And then the LORD'S wrath be kindled against you, and he shut up the heaven, that there be no rain, and that the land yield not her fruit; and lest ye perish quickly from off the good land which the LORD giveth you.
18Therefore shall ye lay up these my words in your heart and in your soul, and bind them for a sign upon your hand, that they may be as frontlets between your eyes.
19And ye shall teach them your children, speaking of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.
20And thou shalt write them upon the door posts of thine house, and upon thy gates:
21That your days may be multiplied, and the days of your children, in the land which the LORD sware unto your fathers to give them, as the days of heaven upon the earth.
22For if ye shall diligently keep all these commandments which I command you, to do them, to love the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, and to cleave unto him;
23Then will the LORD drive out all these nations from before you, and ye shall possess greater nations and mightier than yourselves.
24Every place whereon the soles of your feet shall tread shall be yours: from the wilderness and Lebanon, from the river, the river Euphrates, even unto the uttermost sea shall your coast be.
25There shall no man be able to stand before you: for the LORD your God shall lay the fear of you and the dread of you upon all the land that ye shall tread upon, as he hath said unto you.
26Behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse;
27A blessing, if ye obey the commandments of the LORD your God, which I command you this day:
28And a curse, if ye will not obey the commandments of the LORD your God, but turn aside out of the way which I command you this day, to go after other gods, which ye have not known.
29And it shall come to pass, when the LORD thy God hath brought thee in unto the land whither thou goest to possess it, that thou shalt put the blessing upon mount Gerizim, and the curse upon mount Ebal.
30Are they not on the other side Jordan, by the way where the sun goeth down, in the land of the Canaanites, which dwell in the champaign over against Gilgal, beside the plains of Moreh?
31For ye shall pass over Jordan to go in to possess the land which the LORD your God giveth you, and ye shall possess it, and dwell therein.
32And ye shall observe to do all the statutes and judgments which I set before you this day.
Chapter 12
1These are the statutes and judgments, which ye shall observe to do in the land, which the LORD God of thy fathers giveth thee to possess it, all the days that ye live upon the earth. 2Ye shall utterly destroy all the places, wherein the nations which ye shall possess served their gods, upon the high mountains, and upon the hills, and under every green tree: 3And ye shall overthrow their altars, and break their pillars, and burn their groves with fire; and ye shall hew down the graven images of their gods, and destroy the names of them out of that place. 4Ye shall not do so unto the LORD your God.
5But unto the place which the LORD your God shall choose out of all your tribes to put his name there, even unto his habitation shall ye seek, and thither thou shalt come:
6And thither ye shall bring your burnt offerings, and your sacrifices, and your tithes, and heave offerings of your hand, and your vows, and your freewill offerings, and the firstlings of your herds and of your flocks:
7And there ye shall eat before the LORD your God, and ye shall rejoice in all that ye put your hand unto, ye and your households, wherein the LORD thy God hath blessed thee.
8Ye shall not do after all the things that we do here this day, every man whatsoever is right in his own eyes.
9For ye are not as yet come to the rest and to the inheritance, which the LORD your God giveth you.
10But when ye go over Jordan, and dwell in the land which the LORD your God giveth you to inherit, and when he giveth you rest from all your enemies round about, so that ye dwell in safety;
11Then there shall be a place which the LORD your God shall choose to cause his name to dwell there; thither shall ye bring all that I command you; your burnt offerings, and your sacrifices, your tithes, and the heave offering of your hand, and all your choice vows which ye vow unto the LORD:
12And ye shall rejoice before the LORD your God, ye, and your sons, and your daughters, and your menservants, and your maidservants, and the Levite that is within your gates; forasmuch as he hath no part nor inheritance with you.
13Take heed to thyself that thou offer not thy burnt offerings in every place that thou seest:
14But 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.
15Notwithstanding thou mayest kill and eat flesh in all thy gates, whatsoever thy soul lusteth after, according to the blessing of the LORD thy God which he hath given thee: the unclean and the clean may eat thereof, as of the roebuck, and as of the hart.
16Only ye shall not eat the blood; ye shall pour it upon the earth as water.
17Thou mayest not eat within thy gates the tithe of thy corn, or of thy wine, or of thy oil, or the firstlings of thy herds or of thy flock, nor any of thy vows which thou vowest, nor thy freewill offerings, or heave offering of thine hand:
18But thou must eat them before the LORD thy God in the place which the LORD thy God shall choose, thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, and thy manservant, and thy maidservant, and the Levite that is within thy gates: and thou shalt rejoice before the LORD thy God in all that thou puttest thine hands unto.
19Take heed to thyself that thou forsake not the Levite as long as thou livest upon the earth.
20When the LORD thy God shall enlarge thy border, as he hath promised thee, and thou shalt say, I will eat flesh, because thy soul longeth to eat flesh; thou mayest eat flesh, whatsoever thy soul lusteth after.
21If the place which the LORD thy God hath chosen to put his name there be too far from thee, then thou shalt kill of thy herd and of thy flock, which the LORD hath given thee, as I have commanded thee, and thou shalt eat in thy gates whatsoever thy soul lusteth after.
22Even as the roebuck and the hart is eaten, so thou shalt eat them: the unclean and the clean shall eat of them alike.
23Only be sure that thou eat not the blood: for the blood is the life; and thou mayest not eat the life with the flesh.
24Thou shalt not eat it; thou shalt pour it upon the earth as water.
25Thou 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.
26Only thy holy things which thou hast, and thy vows, thou shalt take, and go unto the place which the LORD shall choose:
27And 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.
28Observe 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.
29When the LORD thy God shall cut off the nations from before thee, whither thou goest to possess them, and thou succeedest them, and dwellest in their land;
30Take heed to thyself that thou be not snared by following them, after that they be destroyed from before thee; and that thou inquire not after their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their gods? even so will I do likewise.
31Thou shalt not do so unto the LORD thy God: for every abomination to the LORD, which he hateth, have they done unto their gods; for even their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire to their gods.
32What thing soever I command you, observe to do it: thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it.
Chapter 13
1If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder, 2And the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them; 3Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams: for the LORD your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul. 4Ye shall walk after the LORD your God, and fear him, and keep his commandments, and obey his voice, and ye shall serve him, and cleave unto him. 5And that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death; because he hath spoken to turn you away from the LORD your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, 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.
6If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers;
7Namely, of the gods of the people which are round about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth;
8Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him:
9But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people.
10And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die; because he hath sought to thrust thee away from the LORD thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.
11And all Israel shall hear, and fear, and shall do no more any such wickedness as this is among you.
12If thou shalt hear say in one of thy cities, which the LORD thy God hath given thee to dwell there, saying,
13Certain men, the children of Belial, are gone out from among you, and have withdrawn the inhabitants of their city, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which ye have not known;
14Then shalt thou inquire, and make search, and ask diligently; and, behold, if it be truth, and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrought among you;
15Thou shalt surely smite the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, destroying it utterly, and all that is therein, and the cattle thereof, with the edge of the sword.
16And thou shalt gather all the spoil of it into the midst of the street thereof, and shalt burn with fire the city, and all the spoil thereof every whit, for the LORD thy God: and it shall be an heap for ever; it shall not be built again.
17And there shall cleave nought of the cursed thing to thine hand: that the LORD may turn from the fierceness of his anger, and shew thee mercy, and have compassion upon thee, and multiply thee, as he hath sworn unto thy fathers;
18When thou shalt hearken to the voice of the LORD thy God, to keep all his commandments which I command thee this day, to do that which is right in the eyes of the LORD thy God.
Chapter 14
1Ye are the children of the LORD your God: ye shall not cut yourselves, nor make any baldness between your eyes for the dead. 2For thou art an holy people unto the LORD thy God, and the LORD hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself, above all the nations that are upon the earth. 3Thou shalt not eat any abominable thing. 4These are the beasts which ye shall eat: the ox, the sheep, and the goat, 5The hart, and the roebuck, and the fallow deer, and the wild goat, and the pygarg, and the wild ox, and the chamois. 6And every beast that parteth the hoof, and cleaveth the cleft into two claws, and cheweth the cud among the beasts, that ye shall eat. 7Nevertheless these ye shall not eat of them that chew the cud, or of them that divide the cloven hoof; as the camel, and the hare, and the coney: for they chew the cud, but divide not the hoof; therefore they are unclean unto you. 8And the swine, because it divideth the hoof, yet cheweth not the cud, it is unclean unto you: ye shall not eat of their flesh, nor touch their dead carcase. 9These ye shall eat of all that are in the waters: all that have fins and scales shall ye eat: 10And whatsoever hath not fins and scales ye may not eat; it is unclean unto you. 11Of all clean birds ye shall eat. 12But these are they of which ye shall not eat: the eagle, and the ossifrage, and the ospray, 13And the glede, and the kite, and the vulture after his kind, 14And every raven after his kind, 15And the owl, and the night hawk, and the cuckow, and the hawk after his kind, 16The little owl, and the great owl, and the swan, 17And the pelican, and the gier eagle, and the cormorant, 18And the stork, and the heron after her kind, and the lapwing, and the bat. 19And every creeping thing that flieth is unclean unto you: they shall not be eaten. 20But of all clean fowls ye may eat. 21Ye shall not eat of any thing that dieth of itself: thou shalt give it unto the stranger that is in thy gates, that he may eat it; or thou mayest sell it unto an alien: for thou art an holy people unto the LORD thy God. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk.
22Thou shalt truly tithe all the increase of thy seed, that the field bringeth forth year by year.
23And thou shalt eat before the LORD thy God, in the place which he shall choose to place his name there, the tithe of thy corn, of thy wine, and of thine oil, and the firstlings of thy herds and of thy flocks; that thou mayest learn to fear the LORD thy God always.
24And if the way be too long for thee, so that thou art not able to carry it; or if the place be too far from thee, which the LORD thy God shall choose to set his name there, when the LORD thy God hath blessed thee:
25Then shalt thou turn it into money, and bind up the money in thine hand, and shalt go unto the place which the LORD thy God shall choose:
26And thou shalt bestow that money for whatsoever thy soul lusteth after, for oxen, or for sheep, or for wine, or for strong drink, or for whatsoever thy soul desireth: and thou shalt eat there before the LORD thy God, and thou shalt rejoice, thou, and thine household,
27And the Levite that is within thy gates; thou shalt not forsake him; for he hath no part nor inheritance with thee.
28At 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:
29And the Levite, (because he hath no part nor inheritance with thee,) and the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, which 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 thine hand which thou doest.
Chapter 15
1At the end of every seven years thou shalt make a release. 2And this is the manner of the release: Every creditor that lendeth ought unto his neighbour shall release it; he shall not exact it of his neighbour, or of his brother; because it is called the LORD'S release. 3Of a foreigner thou mayest exact it again: but that which is thine with thy brother thine hand shall release; 4Save when there shall be no poor among you; for the LORD shall greatly bless thee in the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee for an inheritance to possess it: 5Only if thou carefully hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe to do all these commandments which I command thee this day. 6For the LORD thy God blesseth thee, as he promised thee: and thou shalt lend unto many nations, but thou shalt not borrow; and thou shalt reign over many nations, but they shall not reign over thee. 7If there be among you a poor man of one of thy brethren within any of thy gates in thy land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not harden thine heart, nor shut thine hand from thy poor brother: 8But thou shalt open thine hand wide unto him, and shalt surely lend him sufficient for his need, in that which he wanteth. 9Beware that there be not a thought in thy wicked heart, saying, The seventh year, the year of release, is at hand; and thine eye be evil against thy poor brother, and thou givest him nought; and he cry unto the LORD against thee, and it be sin unto thee. 10Thou shalt surely give him, and thine heart shall not be grieved when thou givest unto him: because that for this thing the LORD thy God shall bless thee in all thy works, and in all that thou puttest thine hand unto. 11For 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.
12And if thy brother, an Hebrew man, or an Hebrew woman, be sold unto thee, and serve thee six years; then in the seventh year thou shalt let him go free from thee.
13And when thou sendest him out free from thee, thou shalt not let him go away empty:
14Thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy flock, and out of thy floor, and out of thy winepress: of that wherewith the LORD thy God hath blessed thee thou shalt give unto him.
15And thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in the land of Egypt, and the LORD thy God redeemed thee: therefore I command thee this thing to day.
16And it shall be, if he say unto thee, I will not go away from thee; because he loveth thee and thine house, because he is well with thee;
17Then thou shalt take an aul, and thrust it through his ear unto the door, and he shall be thy servant for ever. And also unto thy maidservant thou shalt do likewise.
18It shall not seem hard unto thee, when thou sendest him away free from thee; for he hath been worth a double hired servant to thee, in serving thee six years: and the LORD thy God shall bless thee in all that thou doest.
19All the firstling 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 firstling of thy bullock, nor shear the firstling of thy sheep.
20Thou shalt eat it before the LORD thy God year by year in the place which the LORD shall choose, thou and thy household.
21And if there be any blemish therein, as if it be lame, or blind, or have any ill blemish, thou shalt not sacrifice it unto the LORD thy God.
22Thou shalt eat it within thy gates: the unclean and the clean person shall eat it alike, as the roebuck, and as the hart.
23Only thou shalt not eat the blood thereof; thou shalt pour it upon the ground as water.
Chapter 16
1Observe the month of Abib, and keep the passover unto the LORD thy God: for in the month of Abib the LORD thy God brought thee forth out of Egypt by night. 2Thou shalt therefore sacrifice the passover unto the LORD thy God, of the flock and the herd, in the place which the LORD shall choose to place his name there. 3Thou shalt eat no leavened bread with it; seven days shalt thou eat unleavened bread therewith, even the bread of affliction; for thou camest forth out of the land of Egypt in haste: that thou mayest remember the day when thou camest forth out of the land of Egypt in haste: that thou mayest remember the day when thou camest forth out of the land of Egypt all the days of thy life. 4And there shall be no leavened bread seen with thee in all thy coast seven days; neither shall there any thing of the flesh, which thou sacrificedst the first day at even, remain all night until the morning. 5Thou mayest not sacrifice the passover within any of thy gates, which the LORD thy God giveth thee: 6But at the place which the LORD thy God shall choose to place his name in, there thou shalt sacrifice the passover at even, at the going down of the sun, at the season that thou camest forth out of Egypt. 7And thou shalt roast and eat it in the place which the LORD thy God shall choose: and thou shalt turn in the morning, and go unto thy tents. 8Six days thou shalt eat unleavened bread: and on the seventh day shall be a solemn assembly to the LORD thy God: thou shalt do no work therein. 9Seven weeks shalt thou number unto thee: begin to number the seven weeks from such time as thou beginnest to put the sickle to the corn. 10And thou shalt keep the feast of weeks unto the LORD thy God with a tribute of a freewill offering of thine hand, which thou shalt give unto the LORD thy God, according as the LORD thy God hath blessed thee: 11And thou shalt rejoice before the LORD thy God, thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, and thy manservant, and thy maidservant, and the Levite that is within thy gates, and the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, that are among you, in the place which the LORD thy God hath chosen to place his name there. 12And thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in Egypt: and thou shalt observe and do these statutes. 13Thou shalt observe the feast of tabernacles seven days, after that thou hast gathered in thy corn and thy wine: 14And thou shalt rejoice in thy feast, thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, and thy manservant, and thy maidservant, and the Levite, the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, that are within thy gates. 15Seven days shalt thou keep a solemn feast unto the LORD thy God in the place which the LORD shall choose: because the LORD thy God shall bless thee in all thine increase, and in all the works of thine hands, therefore thou shalt surely rejoice. 16Three times in a year shall all thy males appear before the LORD thy God in the place which he shall choose; in the feast of unleavened bread, and in the feast of weeks, and in the feast of tabernacles: and they shall not appear before the LORD empty: 17Every man shall give as he is able, according to the blessing of the LORD thy God which he hath given thee.
18Judges and officers shalt thou make thee in all thy gates, which the LORD thy God giveth thee, throughout thy tribes: and they shall judge the people with just judgment.
19Thou shalt not wrest judgment; thou shalt not respect persons, neither take a gift: for a gift doth blind the eyes of the wise, and pervert the words of the righteous.
20That which is altogether just shalt thou follow, that thou mayest live, and inherit the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.
21Thou shalt not plant thee a grove of any trees near unto the altar of the LORD thy God, which thou shalt make thee.
22Neither shalt thou set thee up any image; which the LORD thy God hateth.
Chapter 17
1Thou shalt not sacrifice unto the LORD thy God any bullock, or sheep, wherein is blemish, or any evilfavouredness: for that is an abomination unto the LORD thy God. 2If there be found among you, within any of thy gates which the LORD thy God giveth thee, man or woman, that hath wrought wickedness in the sight of the LORD thy God, in transgressing his covenant, 3And hath gone and served other gods, and worshipped them, either the sun, or moon, or any of the host of heaven, which I have not commanded; 4And it be told thee, and thou hast heard of it, and inquired diligently, and, behold, it be true, and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrought in Israel: 5Then shalt thou bring forth that man or that woman, which have committed that wicked thing, unto thy gates, even that man or that woman, and shalt stone them with stones, till they die. 6At the mouth of two witnesses, or three witnesses, shall he that is worthy of death be put to death; but at the mouth of one witness he shall not be put to death. 7The hands of the witnesses shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterward the hands of all the people. So thou shalt put the evil away from among you.
8If there arise a matter too hard for thee in judgment, between blood and blood, between plea and plea, and between stroke and stroke, being matters of controversy within thy gates: then shalt thou arise, and get thee up into the place which the LORD thy God shall choose;
9And thou shalt come unto the priests the Levites, and unto the judge that shall be in those days, and inquire; and they shall shew thee the sentence of judgment:
10And thou shalt do according to the sentence, which they of that place which the LORD shall choose shall shew thee; and thou shalt observe to do according to all that they inform thee:
11According to the sentence of the law which they shall teach thee, and according to the judgment which they shall tell thee, thou shalt do: thou shalt not decline from the sentence which they shall shew thee, to the right hand, nor to the left.
12And the man that will do presumptuously, and will not hearken unto the priest that standeth to minister there before the LORD thy God, or unto the judge, even that man shall die: and thou shalt put away the evil from Israel.
13And all the people shall hear, and fear, and do no more presumptuously.
14When thou art come unto the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, and shalt possess it, and shalt dwell therein, and shalt say, I will set a king over me, like as all the nations that are about me;
15Thou shalt in any wise set him king over thee, whom the LORD thy God shall choose: one from among thy brethren shalt thou set king over thee: thou mayest not set a stranger over thee, which is not thy brother.
16But he shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt, to the end that he should multiply horses: forasmuch as the LORD hath said unto you, Ye shall henceforth return no more that way.
17Neither shall he multiply wives to himself, that his heart turn not away: neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold.
18And it shall be, when he sitteth upon the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book out of that which is before the priests the Levites:
19And it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life: that he may learn to fear the LORD his God, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes, to do them:
20That his heart be not lifted up above his brethren, and that he turn not aside from the commandment, to the right hand, or to the left: to the end that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he, and his children, in the midst of Israel.
Christian Standard Bible
2Understand today that it is not your children who experienced or saw the discipline of the Lord your God:His greatness, strong hand, and outstretched arm;
3his signs and the works he did in Egypt to Pharaoh king of Egypt and all his land;
4what he did to Egypt's army, its horses and chariots, when he made the water of the Red Sea flow over them as they pursued you, and he destroyed them completely;
5what he did to you in the wilderness until you reached this place;
6and what he did to Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab the Reubenite, when in the middle of the whole Israelite camp the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them, their households, their tents, and every living thing with them.
8"Keep every command I am giving you today, so that you may have the strength to cross into and possess the land you are to inherit,
9and so that you may live long in the land the Lord swore to your ancestors to give them and their descendants, a land flowing with milk and honey.
10For the land you are entering to possess is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come, where you sowed your seed and irrigated by hand as in a vegetable garden.
11But the land you are entering to possess is a land of mountains and valleys, watered by rain from the sky.
12It is a land the Lord your God cares for. He is always watching over it from the beginning to the end of the year.
13"If you carefully obey my commands I am giving you today, to love the Lord your God and worship him with all your heart and all your soul,
14I will provide rain for your land in the proper time, the autumn and spring rains, and you will harvest your grain, new wine, and fresh oil.
15I will provide grass in your fields for your livestock. You will eat and be satisfied.
16Be careful that you are not enticed to turn aside, serve, and bow in worship to other gods.
17Then the Lord's anger will burn against you. He will shut the sky, and there will be no rain; the land will not yield its produce, and you will perish quickly from the good land the Lord is giving you.
18"Imprint these words of mine on your hearts and minds, bind them as a sign on your hands, and let them be a symbol on your foreheads.
19Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.
20Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your city gates,
21so that as long as the heavens are above the earth, your days and those of your children may be many in the land the Lord swore to give your ancestors.
22For if you carefully observe every one of these commands I am giving you to follow--to love the Lord your God, walk in all his ways, and remain faithful to him--
23the Lord will drive out all these nations before you, and you will drive out nations greater and stronger than you are.
24Every place the sole of your foot treads will be yours. Your territory will extend from the wilderness to Lebanon and from the Euphrates River to the Mediterranean Sea.
25No one will be able to stand against you; the Lord your God will put fear and dread of you in all the land where you set foot, as he has promised you.
26"Look, today I set before you a blessing and a curse:
27there will be a blessing, if you obey the commands of the Lord your God I am giving you today,
28and a curse, if you do not obey the commands of the Lord your God and you turn aside from the path I command you today by following other gods you have not known.
29When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess, you are to proclaim the blessing at Mount Gerizim and the curse at Mount Ebal.
30Aren't these mountains across the Jordan, beyond the western road in the land of the Canaanites, who live in the Arabah, opposite Gilgal, near the oaks of Moreh?
31For you are about to cross the Jordan to enter and take possession of the land the Lord your God is giving you. When you possess it and settle in it,
32be careful to follow all the statutes and ordinances I set before you today.
Chapter 12
1"Be careful to follow these statutes and ordinances in the land that the Lord, the God of your ancestors, has given you to possess all the days you live on the earth. 2Destroy completely all the places where the nations that you are driving out worship their gods--on the high mountains, on the hills, and under every green tree. 3Tear down their altars, smash their sacred pillars, burn their Asherah poles, cut down the carved images of their gods, and wipe out their names from every place. 4Don't worship the Lord your God this way. 5Instead, turn to the place the Lord your God chooses from all your tribes to put his name for his dwelling and go there. 6You are to bring there your burnt offerings and sacrifices, your tenths and personal contributions, your vow offerings and freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks. 7You will eat there in the presence of the Lord your God and rejoice with your household in everything you do, because the Lord your God has blessed you.
8"You are not to do as we are doing here today; everyone is doing whatever seems right in his own sight.
9Indeed, you have not yet come into the resting place and the inheritance the Lord your God is giving you.
10When you cross the Jordan and live in the land the Lord your God is giving you to inherit, and he gives you rest from all the enemies around you and you live in security,
11then the Lord your God will choose the place to have his name dwell. Bring there everything I command you: your burnt offerings, sacrifices, offerings of the tenth, personal contributions, and all your choice offerings you vow to the Lord.
12You will rejoice before the Lord your God--you, your sons and daughters, your male and female slaves, and the Levite who is within your city gates, since he has no portion or inheritance among you.
13Be careful not to offer your burnt offerings in all the sacred places you see.
14You must offer your burnt offerings only in the place the Lord chooses in one of your tribes, and there you must do everything I command you.
15"But whenever you want, you may slaughter and eat meat within any of your city gates, according to the blessing the Lord your God has given you. Those who are clean or unclean may eat it, as they would a gazelle or deer,
16but you must not eat the blood; pour it on the ground like water.
17Within your city gates you may not eat the tenth of your grain, new wine, or fresh oil; the firstborn of your herd or flock; any of your vow offerings that you pledge; your freewill offerings; or your personal contributions.
18You are to eat them in the presence of the Lord your God at the place the Lord your God chooses--you, your son and daughter, your male and female slave, and the Levite who is within your city gates. Rejoice before the Lord your God in everything you do,
19and be careful not to neglect the Levite, as long as you live in your land.
20"When the Lord your God enlarges your territory as he has promised you, and you say, 'I want to eat meat' because you have a strong desire to eat meat, you may eat it whenever you want.
21If the place where the Lord your God chooses to put his name is too far from you, you may slaughter any of your herd or flock he has given you, as I have commanded you, and you may eat it within your city gates whenever you want.
22Indeed, you may eat it as the gazelle and deer are eaten; both the clean and the unclean may eat it.
23But don't eat the blood, since the blood is the life, and you must not eat the life with the meat.
24Do not eat blood; pour it on the ground like water.
25Do not eat it, so that you and your children after you will prosper, because you will be doing what is right in the Lord's sight.
26"But you are to take the holy offerings you have and your vow offerings and go to the place the Lord chooses.
27Present the meat and blood of your burnt offerings on the altar of the Lord your God. The blood of your other sacrifices is to be poured out beside the altar of the Lord your God, but you may eat the meat.
28Be careful to obey all these things I command you, so that you and your children after you may prosper forever, because you will be doing what is good and right in the sight of the Lord your God.
29"When the Lord your God annihilates the nations before you, which you are entering to take possession of, and you drive them out and live in their land,
30be careful not to be ensnared by their ways after they have been destroyed before you. Do not inquire about their gods, asking, 'How did these nations worship their gods? I'll also do the same.'
31You must not do the same to the Lord your God, because they practice every detestable act, which the Lord hates, for their gods. They even burn their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods.
32Be careful to do everything I command you; do not add anything to it or take anything away from it.
Chapter 13
1"If a prophet or someone who has dreams arises among you and proclaims a sign or wonder to you, 2and that sign or wonder he has promised you comes about, but he says, 'Let's follow other gods,' which you have not known, 'and let's worship them,' 3do not listen to that prophet's words or to that dreamer. For the Lord your God is testing you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul. 4You must follow the Lord your God and fear him. You must keep his commands and listen to him; you must worship him and remain faithful to him. 5That prophet or dreamer must be put to death, because he has urged rebellion against the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the place of slavery, to turn you from the way the Lord your God has commanded you to walk. You must purge the evil from you.
6"If your brother, the son of your mother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you embrace, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, 'Let's go and worship other gods'--which neither you nor your ancestors have known,
7any of the gods of the peoples around you, near you or far from you, from one end of the earth to the other--
8do not yield to him or listen to him. Show him no pity, and do not spare him or shield him.
9Instead, you must kill him. Your hand is to be the first against him to put him to death, and then the hands of all the people.
10Stone him to death for trying to turn you away from the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the place of slavery.
11All Israel will hear and be afraid, and they will no longer do anything evil like this among you.
12"If you hear it said about one of your cities the Lord your God is giving you to live in,
13that wicked men have sprung up among you, led the inhabitants of their city astray, and said, 'Let's go and worship other gods,' which you have not known,
14you are to inquire, investigate, and interrogate thoroughly. If the report turns out to be true that this detestable act has been done among you,
15you must strike down the inhabitants of that city with the sword. Completely destroy everyone in it as well as its livestock with the sword.
16You are to gather all its spoil in the middle of the city square and completely burn the city and all its spoil for the Lord your God. The city is to remain a mound of ruins forever; it is not to be rebuilt.
17Nothing set apart for destruction is to remain in your hand, so that the Lord will turn from his burning anger and grant you mercy, show you compassion, and multiply you as he swore to your ancestors.
18This will occur if you obey the Lord your God, keeping all his commands I am giving you today, doing what is right in the sight of the Lord your God.
Chapter 14
1"You are sons of the Lord your God; do not cut yourselves or make a bald spot on your head on behalf of the dead, 2for you are a holy people belonging to the Lord your God. The Lord has chosen you to be his own possession out of all the peoples on the face of the earth.
9"You may eat everything from the water that has fins and scales,
10but you may not eat anything that does not have fins and scales--it is unclean for you.
19All winged insects are unclean for you; they may not be eaten.
20But you may eat every clean flying creature.
22"Each year you are to set aside a tenth of all the produce grown in your fields.
23You are to eat a tenth of your grain, new wine, and fresh oil, and the firstborn of your herd and flock, in the presence of the Lord your God at the place where he chooses to have his name dwell, so that you will always learn to fear the Lord your God.
24But if the distance is too great for you to carry it, since the place where the Lord your God chooses to put his name is too far away from you and since the Lord your God has blessed you,
25then exchange it for silver, take the silver in your hand, and go to the place the Lord your God chooses.
26You may spend the silver on anything you want: cattle, sheep, goats, wine, beer, or anything you desire. You are to feast there in the presence of the Lord your God and rejoice with your family.
27Do not neglect the Levite within your city gates, since he has no portion or inheritance among you.
28"At the end of every three years, bring a tenth of all your produce for that year and store it within your city gates.
29Then the Levite, who has no portion or inheritance among you, the resident alien, the fatherless, and the widow within your city gates may come, eat, and be satisfied. And the Lord your God will bless you in all the work of your hands that you do.
Chapter 15
1"At the end of every seven years you must cancel debts. 2This is how to cancel debt: Every creditor is to cancel what he has lent his neighbor. He is not to collect anything from his neighbor or brother, because the Lord's release of debts has been proclaimed. 3You may collect something from a foreigner, but you must forgive whatever your brother owes you.
4"There will be no poor among you, however, because the Lord is certain to bless you in the land the Lord your God is giving you to possess as an inheritance--
5if only you obey the Lord your God and are careful to follow every one of these commands I am giving you today.
6When the Lord your God blesses you as he has promised you, you will lend to many nations but not borrow; you will rule many nations, but they will not rule you.
7"If there is a poor person among you, one of your brothers within any of your city gates in the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward your poor brother.
8Instead, you are to open your hand to him and freely loan him enough for whatever need he has.
9Be careful that there isn't this wicked thought in your heart, 'The seventh year, the year of canceling debts, is near,' and you are stingy toward your poor brother and give him nothing. He will cry out to the Lord against you, and you will be guilty.
10Give to him, and don't have a stingy heart when you give, and because of this the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in everything you do.
11For there will never cease to be poor people in the land; that is why I am commanding you, 'Open your hand willingly to your poor and needy brother in your land.'
12"If your fellow Hebrew, a man or woman, is sold to you and serves you six years, you must set him free in the seventh year.
13When you set him free, do not send him away empty-handed.
14Give generously to him from your flock, your threshing floor, and your winepress. You are to give him whatever the Lord your God has blessed you with.
15Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you; that is why I am giving you this command today.
16But if your slave says to you, 'I don't want to leave you,' because he loves you and your family, and is well off with you,
17take an awl and pierce through his ear into the door, and he will become your slave for life. Also treat your female slave the same way.
18Do not regard it as a hardship when you set him free, because he worked for you six years--worth twice the wages of a hired worker. Then the Lord your God will bless you in everything you do.
19"Consecrate to the Lord your God every firstborn male produced by your herd and flock. You are not to put the firstborn of your oxen to work or shear the firstborn of your flock.
20Each year you and your family are to eat it before the Lord your God in the place the Lord chooses.
21But if there is a defect in the animal, if it is lame or blind or has any serious defect, you may not sacrifice it to the Lord your God.
22Eat it within your city gates; both the unclean person and the clean may eat it, as though it were a gazelle or deer.
23But you must not eat its blood; pour it on the ground like water.
Chapter 16
1"Set aside the month of Abib and observe the Passover to the Lord your God, because the Lord your God brought you out of Egypt by night in the month of Abib. 2Sacrifice to the Lord your God a Passover animal from the herd or flock in the place where the Lord chooses to have his name dwell. 3Do not eat leavened bread with it. For seven days you are to eat unleavened bread with it, the bread of hardship--because you left the land of Egypt in a hurry--so that you may remember for the rest of your life the day you left the land of Egypt. 4No yeast is to be found anywhere in your territory for seven days, and none of the meat you sacrifice in the evening of the first day is to remain until morning. 5You are not to sacrifice the Passover animal in any of the towns the Lord your God is giving you. 6Sacrifice the Passover animal only at the place where the Lord your God chooses to have his name dwell. Do this in the evening as the sun sets at the same time of day you departed from Egypt. 7You are to cook and eat it in the place the Lord your God chooses, and you are to return to your tents in the morning. 8Eat unleavened bread for six days. On the seventh day there is to be a solemn assembly to the Lord your God; do not do any work.
9"You are to count seven weeks, counting the weeks from the time the sickle is first put to the standing grain.
10You are to celebrate the Festival of Weeks to the Lord your God with a freewill offering that you give in proportion to how the Lord your God has blessed you.
11Rejoice before the Lord your God in the place where he chooses to have his name dwell--you, your son and daughter, your male and female slave, the Levite within your city gates, as well as the resident alien, the fatherless, and the widow among you.
12Remember that you were slaves in Egypt; carefully follow these statutes.
13"You are to celebrate the Festival of Shelters for seven days when you have gathered in everything from your threshing floor and winepress.
14Rejoice during your festival--you, your son and daughter, your male and female slave, as well as the Levite, the resident alien, the fatherless, and the widow within your city gates.
15You are to hold a seven-day festival for the Lord your God in the place he chooses, because the Lord your God will bless you in all your produce and in all the work of your hands, and you will have abundant joy.
16"All your males are to appear three times a year before the Lord your God in the place he chooses: at the Festival of Unleavened Bread, the Festival of Weeks, and the Festival of Shelters. No one is to appear before the Lord empty-handed.
17Everyone must appear with a gift suited to his means, according to the blessing the Lord your God has given you.
18"Appoint judges and officials for your tribes in all your towns the Lord your God is giving you. They are to judge the people with righteous judgment.
19Do not deny justice or show partiality to anyone. Do not accept a bribe, for it blinds the eyes of the wise and twists the words of the righteous.
20Pursue justice and justice alone, so that you will live and possess the land the Lord your God is giving you.
21"Do not set up an Asherah of any kind of wood next to the altar you will build for the Lord your God,
22and do not set up a sacred pillar; the Lord your God hates them.
2"If a man or woman among you in one of your towns that the Lord your God will give you is discovered doing evil in the sight of the Lord your God and violating his covenant
3and has gone to serve other gods by bowing in worship to the sun, moon, or all the stars in the sky--which I have forbidden--
4and if you are told or hear about it, then investigate it thoroughly. If the report turns out to be true that this detestable act has been done in Israel,
5you are to bring out to your city gates that man or woman who has done this evil thing and stone them to death.
6The one condemned to die is to be executed on the testimony of two or three witnesses. No one is to be executed on the testimony of a single witness.
7The witnesses' hands are to be the first in putting him to death, and after that, the hands of all the people. You must purge the evil from you.
8"If a case is too difficult for you--concerning bloodshed, lawsuits, or assaults--cases disputed at your city gates, then go up to the place the Lord your God chooses.
9You are to go to the Levitical priests and to the judge who presides at that time. Ask, and they will give you a verdict in the case.
10You must abide by the verdict they give you at the place the Lord chooses. Be careful to do exactly as they instruct you.
11You must abide by the instruction they give you and the verdict they announce to you. Do not turn to the right or the left from the decision they declare to you.
12The person who acts arrogantly, refusing to listen either to the priest who stands there serving the Lord your God or to the judge, must die. You must purge the evil from Israel.
13Then all the people will hear about it, be afraid, and no longer behave arrogantly.
14"When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, take possession of it, live in it, and say, 'I will set a king over me like all the nations around me,'
15you are to appoint over you the king the Lord your God chooses. Appoint a king from your brothers. You are not to set a foreigner over you, or one who is not of your people.
16However, he must not acquire many horses for himself or send the people back to Egypt to acquire many horses, for the Lord has told you, 'You are never to go back that way again.'
17He must not acquire many wives for himself so that his heart won't go astray. He must not acquire very large amounts of silver and gold for himself.
18When he is seated on his royal throne, he is to write a copy of this instruction for himself on a scroll in the presence of the Levitical priests.
19It is to remain with him, and he is to read from it all the days of his life, so that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, to observe all the words of this instruction, and to do these statutes.
20Then his heart will not be exalted above his countrymen, he will not turn from this command to the right or the left, and he and his sons will continue reigning many years in Israel.
New Living Translation
Chapter 11
1You must love the Lord your God and always obey his requirements, decrees, regulations, and commands. 2Keep in mind that I am not talking now to your children, who have never experienced the discipline of the Lord your God or seen his greatness and his strong hand and powerful arm. 3They didn’t see the miraculous signs and wonders he performed in Egypt against Pharaoh and all his land. 4They didn’t see what the Lord did to the armies of Egypt and to their horses and chariots — how he drowned them in the Red Sea as they were chasing you. He destroyed them, and they have not recovered to this very day!
5Your children didn’t see how the Lord cared for you in the wilderness until you arrived here.
6They didn’t see what he did to Dathan and Abiram (the sons of Eliab, a descendant of Reuben) when the earth opened its mouth in the Israelite camp and swallowed them, along with their households and tents and every living thing that belonged to them.
7But you have seen the Lord perform all these mighty deeds with your own eyes!
8Therefore, be careful to obey every command I am giving you today, so you may have strength to go in and take over the land you are about to enter.
9If you obey, you will enjoy a long life in the land the Lord swore to give to your ancestors and to you, their descendants — a land flowing with milk and honey!
10For the land you are about to enter and take over is not like the land of Egypt from which you came, where you planted your seed and made irrigation ditches with your foot as in a vegetable garden.
11Rather, the land you will soon take over is a land of hills and valleys with plenty of rain —
12a land that the Lord your God cares for. He watches over it through each season of the year!
13If you carefully obey the commands I am giving you today, and if you love the Lord your God and serve him with all your heart and soul,
14then he will send the rains in their proper seasons — the early and late rains — so you can bring in your harvests of grain, new wine, and olive oil.
15He will give you lush pastureland for your livestock, and you yourselves will have all you want to eat.
16But be careful. Don’t let your heart be deceived so that you turn away from the Lord and serve and worship other gods.
17If you do, the Lord’s anger will burn against you. He will shut up the sky and hold back the rain, and the ground will fail to produce its harvests. Then you will quickly die in that good land the Lord is giving you.
18So commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these words of mine. Tie them to your hands and wear them on your forehead as reminders.
19Teach them to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up.
20Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates,
21so that as long as the sky remains above the earth, you and your children may flourish in the land the Lord swore to give your ancestors.
22Be careful to obey all these commands I am giving you. Show love to the Lord your God by walking in his ways and holding tightly to him.
23Then the Lord will drive out all the nations ahead of you, though they are much greater and stronger than you, and you will take over their land.
24Wherever you set foot, that land will be yours. Your frontiers will stretch from the wilderness in the south to Lebanon in the north, and from the Euphrates River in the east to the Mediterranean Sea in the west.
25No one will be able to stand against you, for the Lord your God will cause the people to fear and dread you, as he promised, wherever you go in the whole land.
26Look, today I am giving you the choice between a blessing and a curse!
27You will be blessed if you obey the commands of the Lord your God that I am giving you today.
28But you will be cursed if you reject the commands of the Lord your God and turn away from him and worship gods you have not known before.
29When the Lord your God brings you into the land and helps you take possession of it, you must pronounce the blessing at Mount Gerizim and the curse at Mount Ebal.
30(These two mountains are west of the Jordan River in the land of the Canaanites who live in the Jordan Valley, near the town of Gilgal, not far from the oaks of Moreh.)
31For you are about to cross the Jordan River to take over the land the Lord your God is giving you. When you take that land and are living in it,
32you must be careful to obey all the decrees and regulations I am giving you today.
2When you drive out the nations that live there, you must destroy all the places where they worship their gods — high on the mountains, up on the hills, and under every green tree.
3Break down their altars and smash their sacred pillars. Burn their Asherah poles and cut down their carved idols. Completely erase the names of their gods!
4Do not worship the Lord your God in the way these pagan peoples worship their gods.
5Rather, you must seek the Lord your God at the place of worship he himself will choose from among all the tribes — the place where his name will be honored.
6There you will bring your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, your sacred offerings, your offerings to fulfill a vow, your voluntary offerings, and your offerings of the firstborn animals of your herds and flocks.
7There you and your families will feast in the presence of the Lord your God, and you will rejoice in all you have accomplished because the Lord your God has blessed you.
8Your pattern of worship will change. Today all of you are doing as you please,
9because you have not yet arrived at the place of rest, the land the Lord your God is giving you as your special possession.
10But you will soon cross the Jordan River and live in the land the Lord your God is giving you. When he gives you rest from all your enemies and you’re living safely in the land,
11you must bring everything I command you — your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, your sacred offerings, and your offerings to fulfill a vow — to the designated place of worship, the place the Lord your God chooses for his name to be honored.
12You must celebrate there in the presence of the Lord your God with your sons and daughters and all your servants. And remember to include the Levites who live in your towns, for they will receive no allotment of land among you.
13Be careful not to sacrifice your burnt offerings just anywhere you like.
14You may do so only at the place the Lord will choose within one of your tribal territories. There you must offer your burnt offerings and do everything I command you.
15But you may butcher your animals and eat their meat in any town whenever you want. You may freely eat the animals with which the Lord your God blesses you. All of you, whether ceremonially clean or unclean, may eat that meat, just as you now eat gazelle and deer.
16But you must not consume the blood. You must pour it out on the ground like water.
17But you may not eat your offerings in your hometown — neither the tithe of your grain and new wine and olive oil, nor the firstborn of your flocks and herds, nor any offering to fulfill a vow, nor your voluntary offerings, nor your sacred offerings.
18You must eat these in the presence of the Lord your God at the place he will choose. Eat them there with your children, your servants, and the Levites who live in your towns, celebrating in the presence of the Lord your God in all you do.
19And be very careful never to neglect the Levites as long as you live in your land.
20When the Lord your God expands your territory as he has promised, and you have the urge to eat meat, you may freely eat meat whenever you want.
21It might happen that the designated place of worship — the place the Lord your God chooses for his name to be honored — is a long way from your home. If so, you may butcher any of the cattle, sheep, or goats the Lord has given you, and you may freely eat the meat in your hometown, as I have commanded you.
22Anyone, whether ceremonially clean or unclean, may eat that meat, just as you do now with gazelle and deer.
23But never consume the blood, for the blood is the life, and you must not consume the lifeblood with the meat.
24Instead, pour out the blood on the ground like water.
25Do not consume the blood, so that all may go well with you and your children after you, because you will be doing what pleases the Lord.
26Take your sacred gifts and your offerings given to fulfill a vow to the place the Lord chooses.
27You must offer the meat and blood of your burnt offerings on the altar of the Lord your God. The blood of your other sacrifices must be poured out on the altar of the Lord your God, but you may eat the meat.
28Be careful to obey all my commands, so that all will go well with you and your children after you, because you will be doing what is good and pleasing to the Lord your God.
29When the Lord your God goes ahead of you and destroys the nations and you drive them out and live in their land,
30do not fall into the trap of following their customs and worshiping their gods. Do not inquire about their gods, saying, ‘How do these nations worship their gods? I want to follow their example.’
31You must not worship the Lord your God the way the other nations worship their gods, for they perform for their gods every detestable act that the Lord hates. They even burn their sons and daughters as sacrifices to their gods.
Chapter 13
1Suppose there are prophets among you or those who dream dreams about the future, and they promise you signs or miracles, 2and the predicted signs or miracles occur. If they then say, ‘Come, let us worship other gods’ — gods you have not known before — 3do not listen to them. The Lord your God is testing you to see if you truly love him with all your heart and soul. 4Serve only the Lord your God and fear him alone. Obey his commands, listen to his voice, and cling to him. 5The false prophets or visionaries who try to lead you astray must be put to death, for they encourage rebellion against the Lord your God, who redeemed you from slavery and brought you out of the land of Egypt. Since they try to lead you astray from the way the Lord your God commanded you to live, you must put them to death. In this way you will purge the evil from among you.
6Suppose someone secretly entices you — even your brother, your son or daughter, your beloved wife, or your closest friend — and says, ‘Let us go worship other gods’ — gods that neither you nor your ancestors have known.
7They might suggest that you worship the gods of peoples who live nearby or who come from the ends of the earth.
8But do not give in or listen. Have no pity, and do not spare or protect them.
9You must put them to death! Strike the first blow yourself, and then all the people must join in.
10Stone the guilty ones to death because they have tried to draw you away from the Lord your God, who rescued you from the land of Egypt, the place of slavery.
11Then all Israel will hear about it and be afraid, and no one will act so wickedly again.
12When you begin living in the towns the Lord your God is giving you, you may hear
13that scoundrels among you are leading their fellow citizens astray by saying, ‘Let us go worship other gods’ — gods you have not known before.
14In such cases, you must examine the facts carefully. If you find that the report is true and such a detestable act has been committed among you,
15you must attack that town and completely destroy all its inhabitants, as well as all the livestock.
16Then you must pile all the plunder in the middle of the open square and burn it. Burn the entire town as a burnt offering to the Lord your God. That town must remain a ruin forever; it may never be rebuilt.
17Keep none of the plunder that has been set apart for destruction. Then the Lord will turn from his fierce anger and be merciful to you. He will have compassion on you and make you a large nation, just as he swore to your ancestors.
Chapter 14
1Since you are the people of the Lord your God, never cut yourselves or shave the hair above your foreheads in mourning for the dead. 2You have been set apart as holy to the Lord your God, and he has chosen you from all the nations of the earth to be his own special treasure.
3You must not eat any detestable animals that are ceremonially unclean.
4These are the animals you may eat: the ox, the sheep, the goat,
5the deer, the gazelle, the roe deer, the wild goat, the addax, the antelope, and the mountain sheep.
6You may eat any animal that has completely split hooves and chews the cud,
7but if the animal doesn’t have both, it may not be eaten. So you may not eat the camel, the hare, or the hyrax. They chew the cud but do not have split hooves, so they are ceremonially unclean for you.
8And you may not eat the pig. It has split hooves but does not chew the cud, so it is ceremonially unclean for you. You may not eat the meat of these animals or even touch their carcasses.
9Of all the marine animals, you may eat whatever has both fins and scales.
10You may not, however, eat marine animals that do not have both fins and scales. They are ceremonially unclean for you.
11You may eat any bird that is ceremonially clean.
12These are the birds you may not eat: the griffon vulture, the bearded vulture, the black vulture,
13the kite, the falcon, buzzards of all kinds,
14ravens of all kinds,
15the eagle owl, the short-eared owl, the seagull, hawks of all kinds,
16the little owl, the great owl, the barn owl,
17the desert owl, the Egyptian vulture, the cormorant,
18the stork, herons of all kinds, the hoopoe, and the bat.
19All winged insects that walk along the ground are ceremonially unclean for you and may not be eaten.
20But you may eat any winged bird or insect that is ceremonially clean.
22You must set aside a tithe of your crops — one-tenth of all the crops you harvest each year.
23Bring this tithe to the designated place of worship — the place the Lord your God chooses for his name to be honored — and eat it there in his presence. This applies to your tithes of grain, new wine, olive oil, and the firstborn males of your flocks and herds. Doing this will teach you always to fear the Lord your God.
24Now when the Lord your God blesses you with a good harvest, the place of worship he chooses for his name to be honored might be too far for you to bring the tithe.
25If so, you may sell the tithe portion of your crops and herds, put the money in a pouch, and go to the place the Lord your God has chosen.
26When you arrive, you may use the money to buy any kind of food you want — cattle, sheep, goats, wine, or other alcoholic drink. Then feast there in the presence of the Lord your God and celebrate with your household.
27And do not neglect the Levites in your town, for they will receive no allotment of land among you.
28At the end of every third year, bring the entire tithe of that year’s harvest and store it in the nearest town.
29Give it to the Levites, who will receive no allotment of land among you, as well as to the foreigners living among you, the orphans, and the widows in your towns, so they can eat and be satisfied. Then the Lord your God will bless you in all your work.
Chapter 15
1At the end of every seventh year you must cancel the debts of everyone who owes you money. 2This is how it must be done. Everyone must cancel the loans they have made to their fellow Israelites. They must not demand payment from their neighbors or relatives, for the Lord’s time of release has arrived. 3This release from debt, however, applies only to your fellow Israelites — not to the foreigners living among you.
4There should be no poor among you, for the Lord your God will greatly bless you in the land he is giving you as a special possession.
5You will receive this blessing if you are careful to obey all the commands of the Lord your God that I am giving you today.
6The Lord your God will bless you as he has promised. You will lend money to many nations but will never need to borrow. You will rule many nations, but they will not rule over you.
7But if there are any poor Israelites in your towns when you arrive in the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hard-hearted or tightfisted toward them.
8Instead, be generous and lend them whatever they need.
9Do not be mean-spirited and refuse someone a loan because the year for canceling debts is close at hand. If you refuse to make the loan and the needy person cries out to the Lord, you will be considered guilty of sin.
10Give generously to the poor, not grudgingly, for the Lord your God will bless you in everything you do.
11There will always be some in the land who are poor. That is why I am commanding you to share freely with the poor and with other Israelites in need.
13When you release a male servant, do not send him away empty-handed.
14Give him a generous farewell gift from your flock, your threshing floor, and your winepress. Share with him some of the bounty with which the Lord your God has blessed you.
15Remember that you were once slaves in the land of Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you! That is why I am giving you this command.
16But suppose your servant says, ‘I will not leave you,’ because he loves you and your family, and he has done well with you.
17In that case, take an awl and push it through his earlobe into the door. After that, he will be your servant for life. And do the same for your female servants.
19You must set aside for the Lord your God all the firstborn males from your flocks and herds. Do not use the firstborn of your herds to work your fields, and do not shear the firstborn of your flocks.
20Instead, you and your family must eat these animals in the presence of the Lord your God each year at the place he chooses.
21But if this firstborn animal has any defect, such as lameness or blindness, or if anything else is wrong with it, you must not sacrifice it to the Lord your God.
22Instead, use it for food for your family in your hometown. Anyone, whether ceremonially clean or unclean, may eat it, just as anyone may eat a gazelle or deer.
23But you must not consume the blood. You must pour it out on the ground like water.
Chapter 16
1In honor of the Lord your God, celebrate the Passover each year in the early spring, in the month of Abib, for that was the month in which the Lord your God brought you out of Egypt by night. 2Your Passover sacrifice may be from either the flock or the herd, and it must be sacrificed to the Lord your God at the designated place of worship — the place he chooses for his name to be honored. 3Eat it with bread made without yeast. For seven days the bread you eat must be made without yeast, as when you escaped from Egypt in such a hurry. Eat this bread — the bread of suffering — so that as long as you live you will remember the day you departed from Egypt. 4Let no yeast be found in any house throughout your land for those seven days. And when you sacrifice the Passover lamb on the evening of the first day, do not let any of the meat remain until the next morning.
5You may not sacrifice the Passover in just any of the towns that the Lord your God is giving you.
6You must offer it only at the designated place of worship — the place the Lord your God chooses for his name to be honored. Sacrifice it there in the evening as the sun goes down on the anniversary of your exodus from Egypt.
7Roast the lamb and eat it in the place the Lord your God chooses. Then you may go back to your tents the next morning.
8For the next six days you may not eat any bread made with yeast. On the seventh day proclaim another holy day in honor of the Lord your God, and no work may be done on that day.
9Count off seven weeks from when you first begin to cut the grain at the time of harvest.
10Then celebrate the Festival of Harvest to honor the Lord your God. Bring him a voluntary offering in proportion to the blessings you have received from him.
11This is a time to celebrate before the Lord your God at the designated place of worship he will choose for his name to be honored. Celebrate with your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, the Levites from your towns, and the foreigners, orphans, and widows who live among you.
12Remember that you were once slaves in Egypt, so be careful to obey all these decrees.
13You must observe the Festival of Shelters for seven days at the end of the harvest season, after the grain has been threshed and the grapes have been pressed.
14This festival will be a happy time of celebrating with your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, and the Levites, foreigners, orphans, and widows from your towns.
15For seven days you must celebrate this festival to honor the Lord your God at the place he chooses, for it is he who blesses you with bountiful harvests and gives you success in all your work. This festival will be a time of great joy for all.
16Each year every man in Israel must celebrate these three festivals: the Festival of Unleavened Bread, the Festival of Harvest, and the Festival of Shelters. On each of these occasions, all men must appear before the Lord your God at the place he chooses, but they must not appear before the Lord without a gift for him.
17All must give as they are able, according to the blessings given to them by the Lord your God.
18Appoint judges and officials for yourselves from each of your tribes in all the towns the Lord your God is giving you. They must judge the people fairly.
19You must never twist justice or show partiality. Never accept a bribe, for bribes blind the eyes of the wise and corrupt the decisions of the godly.
20Let true justice prevail, so you may live and occupy the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
21You must never set up a wooden Asherah pole beside the altar you build for the Lord your God.
22And never set up sacred pillars for worship, for the Lord your God hates them.
2When you begin living in the towns the Lord your God is giving you, a man or woman among you might do evil in the sight of the Lord your God and violate the covenant.
3For instance, they might serve other gods or worship the sun, the moon, or any of the stars — the forces of heaven — which I have strictly forbidden.
4When you hear about it, investigate the matter thoroughly. If it is true that this detestable thing has been done in Israel,
5then the man or woman who has committed such an evil act must be taken to the gates of the town and stoned to death.
6But never put a person to death on the testimony of only one witness. There must always be two or three witnesses.
7The witnesses must throw the first stones, and then all the people may join in. In this way, you will purge the evil from among you.
8Suppose a case arises in a local court that is too hard for you to decide — for instance, whether someone is guilty of murder or only of manslaughter, or a difficult lawsuit, or a case involving different kinds of assault. Take such legal cases to the place the Lord your God will choose,
9and present them to the Levitical priests or the judge on duty at that time. They will hear the case and declare the verdict.
10You must carry out the verdict they announce and the sentence they prescribe at the place the Lord chooses. You must do exactly what they say.
11After they have interpreted the law and declared their verdict, the sentence they impose must be fully executed; do not modify it in any way.
12Anyone arrogant enough to reject the verdict of the judge or of the priest who represents the Lord your God must die. In this way you will purge the evil from Israel.
13Then everyone else will hear about it and be afraid to act so arrogantly.
14You are about to enter the land the Lord your God is giving you. When you take it over and settle there, you may think, ‘We should select a king to rule over us like the other nations around us.’
15If this happens, be sure to select as king the man the Lord your God chooses. You must appoint a fellow Israelite; he may not be a foreigner.
16The king must not build up a large stable of horses for himself or send his people to Egypt to buy horses, for the Lord has told you, ‘You must never return to Egypt.’
17The king must not take many wives for himself, because they will turn his heart away from the Lord. And he must not accumulate large amounts of wealth in silver and gold for himself.
18When he sits on the throne as king, he must copy for himself this body of instruction on a scroll in the presence of the Levitical priests.
19He must always keep that copy with him and read it daily as long as he lives. That way he will learn to fear the Lord his God by obeying all the terms of these instructions and decrees.
20This regular reading will prevent him from becoming proud and acting as if he is above his fellow citizens. It will also prevent him from turning away from these commands in the smallest way. And it will ensure that he and his descendants will reign for many generations in Israel.
English Standard Version
Chapter 11
1“You shall therefore love the LORD your God and keep his charge, his statutes, his rules, and his commandments always. 2And consider today (since I am not speaking to your children who have not known or seen it), consider the discipline of the LORD your God, his greatness, his mighty hand and his outstretched arm, 3his signs and his deeds that he did in Egypt to Pharaoh the king of Egypt and to all his land, 4and what he did to the army of Egypt, to their horses and to their chariots, how he made the water of the Red Sea flow over them as they pursued after you, and how the LORD has destroyed them to this day, 5and what he did to you in the wilderness, until you came to this place, 6and what he did to Dathan and Abiram the sons of Eliab, son of Reuben, how the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, with their households, their tents, and every living thing that followed them, in the midst of all Israel. 7For your eyes have seen all the great work of the LORD that he did.
8“You shall therefore keep the whole commandment that I command you today, that you may be strong, and go in and take possession of the land that you are going over to possess,
9and that you may live long in the land that the LORD swore to your fathers to give to them and to their offspring, a land flowing with milk and honey.
10For the land that you are entering to take possession of it is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come, where you sowed your seed and irrigated it, like a garden of vegetables.
11But the land that you are going over to possess is a land of hills and valleys, which drinks water by the rain from heaven,
12a land that the LORD your God cares for. The eyes of the LORD your God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year.
13“And if you will indeed obey my commandments that I command you today, to love the LORD your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul,
14he will give the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the later rain, that you may gather in your grain and your wine and your oil.
15And he will give grass in your fields for your livestock, and you shall eat and be full.
16Take care lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and serve other gods and worship them;
17then the anger of the LORD will be kindled against you, and he will shut up the heavens, so that there will be no rain, and the land will yield no fruit, and you will perish quickly off the good land that the LORD is giving you.
18“You shall therefore lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.
19You shall teach them to your children, talking of them when you are sitting in your house, and when you are walking by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.
20You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates,
21that your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land that the LORD swore to your fathers to give them, as long as the heavens are above the earth.
22For if you will be careful to do all this commandment that I command you to do, loving the LORD your God, walking in all his ways, and holding fast to him,
23then the LORD will drive out all these nations before you, and you will dispossess nations greater and mightier than you.
24Every place on which the sole of your foot treads shall be yours. Your territory shall be from the wilderness to the Lebanon and from the River, the river Euphrates, to the western sea.
25No one shall be able to stand against you. The LORD your God will lay the fear of you and the dread of you on all the land that you shall tread, as he promised you.
26“See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse:
27the blessing, if you obey the commandments of the LORD your God, which I command you today,
28and the curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the LORD your God, but turn aside from the way that I am commanding you today, to go after other gods that you have not known.
29And when the LORD your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it, you shall set the blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ebal.
30Are they not beyond the Jordan, west of the road, toward the going down of the sun, in the land of the Canaanites who live in the Arabah, opposite Gilgal, beside the oak of Moreh?
31For you are to cross over the Jordan to go in to take possession of the land that the LORD your God is giving you. And when you possess it and live in it,
32you shall be careful to do all the statutes and the rules that I am setting before you today.
Chapter 12
1“These are the statutes and rules that you shall be careful to do in the land that the LORD, the God of your fathers, has given you to possess, all the days that you live on the earth. 2You shall surely destroy all the places where the nations whom you shall dispossess served their gods, on the high mountains and on the hills and under every green tree. 3You shall tear down their altars and dash in pieces their pillars and burn their Asherim with fire. You shall chop down the carved images of their gods and destroy their name out of that place. 4You shall not worship the LORD your God in that way. 5But you shall seek the place that the LORD your God will choose out of all your tribes to put his name and make his habitation there. There you shall go, 6and there you shall bring your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and the contribution that you present, your vow offerings, your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herd and of your flock. 7And there you shall eat before the LORD your God, and you shall rejoice, you and your households, in all that you undertake, in which the LORD your God has blessed you.
8“You shall not do according to all that we are doing here today, everyone doing whatever is right in his own eyes,
9for you have not as yet come to the rest and to the inheritance that the LORD your God is giving you.
10But when you go over the Jordan and live in the land that the LORD your God is giving you to inherit, and when he gives you rest from all your enemies around, so that you live in safety,
11then to the place that the LORD your God will choose, to make his name dwell there, there you shall bring all that I command you: your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and the contribution that you present, and all your finest vow offerings that you vow to the LORD.
12And you shall rejoice before the LORD your God, you and your sons and your daughters, your male servants and your female servants, and the Levite that is within your towns, since he has no portion or inheritance with you.
13Take care that you do not offer your burnt offerings at any place that you see,
14but at the place that the LORD will choose in one of your tribes, there you shall offer your burnt offerings, and there you shall do all that I am commanding you.
15“However, you may slaughter and eat meat within any of your towns, as much as you desire, according to the blessing of the LORD your God that he has given you. The unclean and the clean may eat of it, as of the gazelle and as of the deer.
16Only you shall not eat the blood; you shall pour it out on the earth like water.
17You may not eat within your towns the tithe of your grain or of your wine or of your oil, or the firstborn of your herd or of your flock, or any of your vow offerings that you vow, or your freewill offerings or the contribution that you present,
18but you shall eat them before the LORD your God in the place that the LORD your God will choose, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant, and the Levite who is within your towns. And you shall rejoice before the LORD your God in all that you undertake.
19Take care that you do not neglect the Levite as long as you live in your land.
20“When the LORD your God enlarges your territory, as he has promised you, and you say, ‘I will eat meat,’ because you crave meat, you may eat meat whenever you desire.
21If the place that the LORD your God will choose to put his name there is too far from you, then you may kill any of your herd or your flock, which the LORD has given you, as I have commanded you, and you may eat within your towns whenever you desire.
22Just as the gazelle or the deer is eaten, so you may eat of it. The unclean and the clean alike may eat of it.
23Only be sure that you do not eat the blood, for the blood is the life, and you shall not eat the life with the flesh.
24You shall not eat it; you shall pour it out on the earth like water.
25You shall not eat it, that all may go well with you and with your children after you, when you do what is right in the sight of the LORD.
26But the holy things that are due from you, and your vow offerings, you shall take, and you shall go to the place that the LORD will choose,
27and offer your burnt offerings, the flesh and the blood, on the altar of the LORD your God. The blood of your sacrifices shall be poured out on the altar of the LORD your God, but the flesh you may eat.
28Be careful to obey all these words that I command you, that it may go well with you and with your children after you forever, when you do what is good and right in the sight of the LORD your God.
29“When the LORD your God cuts off before you the nations whom you go in to dispossess, and you dispossess them and dwell in their land,
30take care that you be not ensnared to follow them, after they have been destroyed before you, and that you do not inquire about their gods, saying, ‘How did these nations serve their gods?—that I also may do the same.’
31You shall not worship the LORD your God in that way, for every abominable thing that the LORD hates they have done for their gods, for they even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods.
Chapter 13
1“If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, 2and the sign or wonder that he tells you comes to pass, and if he says, ‘Let us go after other gods,’ which you have not known, ‘and let us serve them,’ 3you shall 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. 4You shall walk after the LORD your God and fear him and keep his commandments and obey his voice, and you shall serve him and hold fast to him. 5But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he has taught rebellion against the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you out of the house of slavery, to make you leave the way in which the LORD your God commanded you to walk. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.
6“If your brother, the son of your mother, or your son or your daughter or the wife you embrace or your friend who is as your own soul entices you secretly, saying, ‘Let us go and serve other gods,’ which neither you nor your fathers have known,
7some of the gods of the peoples who are around you, whether near you or far off from you, from the one end of the earth to the other,
8you shall not yield to him or listen to him, nor shall your eye pity him, nor shall you spare him, nor shall you conceal him.
9But you shall kill him. Your hand shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people.
10You shall stone him to death with stones, because he sought to draw you away from the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
11And all Israel shall hear and fear and never again do any such wickedness as this among you.
12“If you hear in one of your cities, which the LORD your God is giving you to dwell there,
13that certain worthless fellows have gone out among you and have drawn away the inhabitants of their city, saying, ‘Let us go and serve other gods,’ which you have not known,
14then you shall inquire and make search and ask diligently. And behold, if it be true and certain that such an abomination has been done among you,
15you shall surely put the inhabitants of that city to the sword, devoting it to destruction, all who are in it and its cattle, with the edge of the sword.
16You shall gather all its spoil into the midst of its open square and burn the city and all its spoil with fire, as a whole burnt offering to the LORD your God. It shall be a heap forever. It shall not be built again.
17None of the devoted things shall stick to your hand, that the LORD may turn from the fierceness of his anger and show you mercy and have compassion on you and multiply you, as he swore to your fathers,
18if you obey the voice of the LORD your God, keeping all his commandments that I am commanding you today, and doing what is right in the sight of the LORD your God.
Chapter 14
1“You are the sons of the LORD your God. You shall not cut yourselves or make any baldness on your foreheads for the dead. 2For you are a people holy to the LORD your God, and the LORD has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.
3“You shall not eat any abomination.
4These are the animals you may eat: the ox, the sheep, the goat,
5the deer, the gazelle, the roebuck, the wild goat, the ibex, the antelope, and the mountain sheep.
6Every animal that parts the hoof and has the hoof cloven in two and chews the cud, among the animals, you may eat.
7Yet of those that chew the cud or have the hoof cloven you shall not eat these: the camel, the hare, and the rock badger, because they chew the cud but do not part the hoof, are unclean for you.
8And the pig, because it parts the hoof but does not chew the cud, is unclean for you. Their flesh you shall not eat, and their carcasses you shall not touch.
9“Of all that are in the waters you may eat these: whatever has fins and scales you may eat.
10And whatever does not have fins and scales you shall not eat; it is unclean for you.
11“You may eat all clean birds.
12But these are the ones that you shall not eat: the eagle, the bearded vulture, the black vulture,
13the kite, the falcon of any kind;
14every raven of any kind;
15the ostrich, the nighthawk, the sea gull, the hawk of any kind;
16the little owl and the short-eared owl, the barn owl
17and the tawny owl, the carrion vulture and the cormorant,
18the stork, the heron of any kind; the hoopoe and the bat.
19And all winged insects are unclean for you; they shall not be eaten.
20All clean winged things you may eat.
22“You shall tithe all the yield of your seed that comes from the field year by year.
23And before the LORD your God, in the place that he will choose, to make his name dwell there, you shall eat the tithe of your grain, of your wine, and of your oil, and the firstborn of your herd and flock, that you may learn to fear the LORD your God always.
24And if the way is too long for you, so that you are not able to carry the tithe, when the LORD your God blesses you, because the place is too far from you, which the LORD your God chooses, to set his name there,
25then you shall turn it into money and bind up the money in your hand and go to the place that the LORD your God chooses
26and spend the money for whatever you desire—oxen or sheep or wine or strong drink, whatever your appetite craves. And you shall eat there before the LORD your God and rejoice, you and your household.
27And you shall not neglect the Levite who is within your towns, for he has no portion or inheritance with you.
28“At the end of every three years you shall bring out all the tithe of your produce in the same year and lay it up within your towns.
29And the Levite, because he has no portion or inheritance with you, and the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow, who are within your towns, shall come and eat and be filled, that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hands that you do.
Chapter 15
1“At the end of every seven years you shall grant a release. 2And this is the manner of the release: every creditor shall release what he has lent to his neighbor. He shall not exact it of his neighbor, his brother, because the LORD’s release has been proclaimed. 3Of a foreigner you may exact it, but whatever of yours is with your brother your hand shall release. 4But there will be no poor among you; for the LORD will bless you in the land that the LORD your God is giving you for an inheritance to possess— 5if only you will strictly obey the voice of the LORD your God, being careful to do all this commandment that I command you today. 6For the LORD your God will bless you, as he promised you, and you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow, and you shall rule over many nations, but they shall not rule over you.
7“If among you, one of your brothers should become poor, in any of your towns within your land that the LORD your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart or shut your hand against your poor brother,
8but you shall open your hand to him and lend him sufficient for his need, whatever it may be.
9Take care lest there be an unworthy thought in your heart and you say, ‘The seventh year, the year of release is near,’ and your eye look grudgingly on your poor brother, and you give him nothing, and he cry to the LORD against you, and you be guilty of sin.
10You shall give to him freely, and your heart shall not be grudging when you give to him, because for this the LORD your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you undertake.
11For there will never cease to be poor in the land. Therefore I command you, ‘You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in your land.’
12“If your brother, a Hebrew man or a Hebrew woman, is sold to you, he shall serve you six years, and in the seventh year you shall let him go free from you.
13And when you let him go free from you, you shall not let him go empty-handed.
14You shall furnish him liberally out of your flock, out of your threshing floor, and out of your winepress. As the LORD your God has blessed you, you shall give to him.
15You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God redeemed you; therefore I command you this today.
16But if he says to you, ‘I will not go out from you,’ because he loves you and your household, since he is well-off with you,
17then you shall take an awl, and put it through his ear into the door, and he shall be your slave forever. And to your female slave you shall do the same.
18It shall not seem hard to you when you let him go free from you, for at half the cost of a hired worker he has served you six years. So the LORD your God will bless you in all that you do.
19“All the firstborn males that are born of your herd and flock you shall dedicate to the LORD your God. You shall do no work with the firstborn of your herd, nor shear the firstborn of your flock.
20You shall eat it, you and your household, before the LORD your God year by year at the place that the LORD will choose.
21But if it has any blemish, if it is lame or blind or has any serious blemish whatever, you shall not sacrifice it to the LORD your God.
22You shall eat it within your towns. The unclean and the clean alike may eat it, as though it were a gazelle or a deer.
23Only you shall not eat its blood; you shall pour it out on the ground like water.
Chapter 16
1“Observe the month of Abib and keep the Passover to the LORD your God, for in the month of Abib the LORD your God brought you out of Egypt by night. 2And you shall offer the Passover sacrifice to the LORD your God, from the flock or the herd, at the place that the LORD will choose, to make his name dwell there. 3You shall eat no leavened bread with it. Seven days you shall eat it with unleavened bread, the bread of affliction—for you came out of the land of Egypt in haste—that all the days of your life you may remember the day when you came out of the land of Egypt. 4No leaven shall be seen with you in all your territory for seven days, nor shall any of the flesh that you sacrifice on the evening of the first day remain all night until morning. 5You may not offer the Passover sacrifice within any of your towns that the LORD your God is giving you, 6but at the place that the LORD your God will choose, to make his name dwell in it, there you shall offer the Passover sacrifice, in the evening at sunset, at the time you came out of Egypt. 7And you shall cook it and eat it at the place that the LORD your God will choose. And in the morning you shall turn and go to your tents. 8For six days you shall eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day there shall be a solemn assembly to the LORD your God. You shall do no work on it.
9“You shall count seven weeks. Begin to count the seven weeks from the time the sickle is first put to the standing grain.
10Then you shall keep the Feast of Weeks to the LORD your God with the tribute of a freewill offering from your hand, which you shall give as the LORD your God blesses you.
11And you shall rejoice before the LORD your God, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant, the Levite who is within your towns, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow who are among you, at the place that the LORD your God will choose, to make his name dwell there.
12You shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt; and you shall be careful to observe these statutes.
13“You shall keep the Feast of Booths seven days, when you have gathered in the produce from your threshing floor and your winepress.
14You shall rejoice in your feast, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant, the Levite, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow who are within your towns.
15For seven days you shall keep the feast to the LORD your God at the place that the LORD will choose, because the LORD your God will bless you in all your produce and in all the work of your hands, so that you will be altogether joyful.
16“Three times a year all your males shall appear before the LORD your God at the place that he will choose: at the Feast of Unleavened Bread, at the Feast of Weeks, and at the Feast of Booths. They shall not appear before the LORD empty-handed.
17Every man shall give as he is able, according to the blessing of the LORD your God that he has given you.
18“You shall appoint judges and officers in all your towns that the LORD your God is giving you, according to your tribes, and they shall judge the people with righteous judgment.
19You shall not pervert justice. You shall not show partiality, and you shall not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and subverts the cause of the righteous.
20Justice, and only justice, you shall follow, that you may live and inherit the land that the LORD your God is giving you.
21“You shall not plant any tree as an Asherah beside the altar of the LORD your God that you shall make.
22And you shall not set up a pillar, which the LORD your God hates.
2“If there is found among you, within any of your towns that the LORD your God is giving you, a man or woman who does what is evil in the sight of the LORD your God, in transgressing his covenant,
3and has gone and served other gods and worshiped them, or the sun or the moon or any of the host of heaven, which I have forbidden,
4and it is told you and you hear of it, then you shall inquire diligently, and if it is true and certain that such an abomination has been done in Israel,
5then you shall bring out to your gates that man or woman who has done this evil thing, and you shall stone that man or woman to death with stones.
6On the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses the one who is to die shall be put to death; a person shall not be put to death on the evidence of one witness.
7The hand of the witnesses shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.
8“If any case arises requiring decision between one kind of homicide and another, one kind of legal right and another, or one kind of assault and another, any case within your towns that is too difficult for you, then you shall arise and go up to the place that the LORD your God will choose.
9And you shall come to the Levitical priests and to the judge who is in office in those days, and you shall consult them, and they shall declare to you the decision.
10Then you shall do according to what they declare to you from that place that the LORD will choose. And you shall be careful to do according to all that they direct you.
11According to the instructions that they give you, and according to the decision which they pronounce to you, you shall do. You shall not turn aside from the verdict that they declare to you, either to the right hand or to the left.
12The man who acts presumptuously by not obeying the priest who stands to minister there before the LORD your God, or the judge, that man shall die. So you shall purge the evil from Israel.
13And all the people shall hear and fear and not act presumptuously again.
14“When you come to the land that the LORD your God is giving you, and you possess it and dwell in it and then say, ‘I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are around me,’
15you may indeed set a king over you whom the LORD your God will choose. One from among your brothers you shall set as king over you. You may not put a foreigner over you, who is not your brother.
16Only he must not acquire many horses for himself or cause the people to return to Egypt in order to acquire many horses, since the LORD has said to you, ‘You shall never return that way again.’
17And he shall not acquire many wives for himself, lest his heart turn away, nor shall he acquire for himself excessive silver and gold.
18“And when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself in a book a copy of this law, approved by the Levitical priests.
19And it shall be with him, and he shall read in it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the LORD his God by keeping all the words of this law and these statutes, and doing them,
20that his heart may not be lifted up above his brothers, and that he may not turn aside from the commandment, either to the right hand or to the left, so that he may continue long in his kingdom, he and his children, in Israel.
New International Version
Chapter 11
1Love the LORD your God and keep his requirements, his decrees, his laws and his commands always. 2Remember today that your children were not the ones who saw and experienced the discipline of the LORD your God: his majesty, his mighty hand, his outstretched arm; 3the signs he performed and the things he did in the heart of Egypt, both to Pharaoh king of Egypt and to his whole country; 4what he did to the Egyptian army, to its horses and chariots, how he overwhelmed them with the waters of the Red Sea as they were pursuing you, and how the LORD brought lasting ruin on them. 5It was not your children who saw what he did for you in the wilderness until you arrived at this place, 6and what he did to Dathan and Abiram, sons of Eliab the Reubenite, when the earth opened its mouth right in the middle of all Israel and swallowed them up with their households, their tents and every living thing that belonged to them. 7But it was your own eyes that saw all these great things the LORD has done.
8Observe therefore all the commands I am giving you today, so that you may have the strength to go in and take over the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess,
9and so that you may live long in the land the LORD swore to your ancestors to give to them and their descendants, a land flowing with milk and honey.
10The land you are entering to take over is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come, where you planted your seed and irrigated it by foot as in a vegetable garden.
11But the land you are crossing the Jordan to take possession of is a land of mountains and valleys that drinks rain from heaven.
12It is a land the LORD your God cares for; the eyes of the LORD your God are continually on it from the beginning of the year to its end.
13So if you faithfully obey the commands I am giving you today--to love the LORD your God and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul--
14then I will send rain on your land in its season, both autumn and spring rains, so that you may gather in your grain, new wine and olive oil.
15I will provide grass in the fields for your cattle, and you will eat and be satisfied.
16Be careful, or you will be enticed to turn away and worship other gods and bow down to them.
17Then the LORD's anger will burn against you, and he will shut up the heavens so that it will not rain and the ground will yield no produce, and you will soon perish from the good land the LORD is giving you.
18Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.
19Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.
20Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates,
21so that your days and the days of your children may be many in the land the LORD swore to give your ancestors, as many as the days that the heavens are above the earth.
22If you carefully observe all these commands I am giving you to follow--to love the LORD your God, to walk in obedience to him and to hold fast to him--
23then the LORD will drive out all these nations before you, and you will dispossess nations larger and stronger than you.
24Every place where you set your foot will be yours: Your territory will extend from the desert to Lebanon, and from the Euphrates River to the Mediterranean Sea.
25No one will be able to stand against you. The LORD your God, as he promised you, will put the terror and fear of you on the whole land, wherever you go.
26See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse--
27the blessing if you obey the commands of the LORD your God that I am giving you today;
28the curse if you disobey the commands of the LORD your God and turn from the way that I command you today by following other gods, which you have not known.
29When the LORD your God has brought you into the land you are entering to possess, you are to proclaim on Mount Gerizim the blessings, and on Mount Ebal the curses.
30As you know, these mountains are across the Jordan, westward, toward the setting sun, near the great trees of Moreh, in the territory of those Canaanites living in the Arabah in the vicinity of Gilgal.
31You are about to cross the Jordan to enter and take possession of the land the LORD your God is giving you. When you have taken it over and are living there,
32be sure that you obey all the decrees and laws I am setting before you today.
Chapter 12
1These are the decrees and laws you must be careful to follow in the land that the LORD, the God of your ancestors, has given you to possess--as long as you live in the land. 2Destroy completely all the places on the high mountains, on the hills and under every spreading tree, where the nations you are dispossessing worship their gods. 3Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones and burn their Asherah poles in the fire; cut down the idols of their gods and wipe out their names from those places.
4You must not worship the LORD your God in their way.
5But you are to seek the place the LORD your God will choose from among all your tribes to put his Name there for his dwelling. To that place you must go;
6there bring your burnt offerings and sacrifices, your tithes and special gifts, what you have vowed to give and your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks.
7There, in the presence of the LORD your God, you and your families shall eat and shall rejoice in everything you have put your hand to, because the LORD your God has blessed you.
8You are not to do as we do here today, everyone doing as they see fit,
9since you have not yet reached the resting place and the inheritance the LORD your God is giving you.
10But you will cross the Jordan and settle in the land the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, and he will give you rest from all your enemies around you so that you will live in safety.
11Then to the place the LORD your God will choose as a dwelling for his Name--there you are to bring everything I command you: your burnt offerings and sacrifices, your tithes and special gifts, and all the choice possessions you have vowed to the LORD.
12And there rejoice before the LORD your God--you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, and the Levites from your towns who have no allotment or inheritance of their own.
13Be careful not to sacrifice your burnt offerings anywhere you please.
14Offer them only at the place the LORD will choose in one of your tribes, and there observe everything I command you.
15Nevertheless, you may slaughter your animals in any of your towns and eat as much of the meat as you want, as if it were gazelle or deer, according to the blessing the LORD your God gives you. Both the ceremonially unclean and the clean may eat it.
16But you must not eat the blood; pour it out on the ground like water.
17You must not eat in your own towns the tithe of your grain and new wine and olive oil, or the firstborn of your herds and flocks, or whatever you have vowed to give, or your freewill offerings or special gifts.
18Instead, you are to eat them in the presence of the LORD your God at the place the LORD your God will choose--you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, and the Levites from your towns--and you are to rejoice before the LORD your God in everything you put your hand to.
19Be careful not to neglect the Levites as long as you live in your land.
20When the LORD your God has enlarged your territory as he promised you, and you crave meat and say, 'I would like some meat,' then you may eat as much of it as you want.
21If the place where the LORD your God chooses to put his Name is too far away from you, you may slaughter animals from the herds and flocks the LORD has given you, as I have commanded you, and in your own towns you may eat as much of them as you want.
22Eat them as you would gazelle or deer. Both the ceremonially unclean and the clean may eat.
23But be sure you do not eat the blood, because the blood is the life, and you must not eat the life with the meat.
24You must not eat the blood; pour it out on the ground like water.
25Do not eat it, so that it may go well with you and your children after you, because you will be doing what is right in the eyes of the LORD.
26But take your consecrated things and whatever you have vowed to give, and go to the place the LORD will choose.
27Present your burnt offerings on the altar of the LORD your God, both the meat and the blood. The blood of your sacrifices must be poured beside the altar of the LORD your God, but you may eat the meat.
28Be careful to obey all these regulations I am giving you, so that it may always go well with you and your children after you, because you will be doing what is good and right in the eyes of the LORD your God.
29The LORD your God will cut off before you the nations you are about to invade and dispossess. But when you have driven them out and settled in their land,
30and after they have been destroyed before you, be careful not to be ensnared by inquiring about their gods, saying, 'How do these nations serve their gods? We will do the same.'
31You must not worship the LORD your God in their way, because in worshiping their gods, they do all kinds of detestable things the LORD hates. They even burn their sons and daughters in the fire as sacrifices to their gods.
Chapter 13
1If a prophet, or one who foretells by dreams, appears among you and announces to you a sign or wonder, 2and if the sign or wonder spoken of takes place, and the prophet says, 'Let us follow other gods' (gods you have not known) 'and let us worship them,' 3you must not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer. The LORD your God is testing you to find out whether you love him with all your heart and with all your soul. 4It is the LORD your God you must follow, and him you must revere. Keep his commands and obey him; serve him and hold fast to him. 5That prophet or dreamer must be put to death for inciting rebellion against the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt and redeemed you from the land of slavery. That prophet or dreamer tried to turn you from the way the LORD your God commanded you to follow. You must purge the evil from among you.
6If your very own brother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you love, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, 'Let us go and worship other gods' (gods that neither you nor your ancestors have known,
7gods of the peoples around you, whether near or far, from one end of the land to the other),
8do not yield to them or listen to them. Show them no pity. Do not spare them or shield them.
9You must certainly put them to death. Your hand must be the first in putting them to death, and then the hands of all the people.
10Stone them to death, because they tried to turn you away from the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.
11Then all Israel will hear and be afraid, and no one among you will do such an evil thing again.
12If you hear it said about one of the towns the LORD your God is giving you to live in
13that troublemakers have arisen among you and have led the people of their town astray, saying, 'Let us go and worship other gods' (gods you have not known),
14then you must inquire, probe and investigate it thoroughly. And if it is true and it has been proved that this detestable thing has been done among you,
15you must certainly put to the sword all who live in that town. You must destroy it completely, both its people and its livestock.
16You are to gather all the plunder of the town into the middle of the public square and completely burn the town and all its plunder as a whole burnt offering to the LORD your God. That town is to remain a ruin forever, never to be rebuilt,
17and none of the condemned things are to be found in your hands. Then the LORD will turn from his fierce anger, will show you mercy, and will have compassion on you. He will increase your numbers, as he promised on oath to your ancestors--
18because you obey the LORD your God by keeping all his commands that I am giving you today and doing what is right in his eyes.
Chapter 14
1You are the children of the LORD your God. Do not cut yourselves or shave the front of your heads for the dead, 2for you are a people holy to the LORD your God. Out of all the peoples on the face of the earth, the LORD has chosen you to be his treasured possession.
3Do not eat any detestable thing.
4These are the animals you may eat: the ox, the sheep, the goat,
5the deer, the gazelle, the roe deer, the wild goat, the ibex, the antelope and the mountain sheep.
6You may eat any animal that has a divided hoof and that chews the cud.
7However, of those that chew the cud or that have a divided hoof you may not eat the camel, the rabbit or the hyrax. Although they chew the cud, they do not have a divided hoof; they are ceremonially unclean for you.
8The pig is also unclean; although it has a divided hoof, it does not chew the cud. You are not to eat their meat or touch their carcasses.
9Of all the creatures living in the water, you may eat any that has fins and scales.
10But anything that does not have fins and scales you may not eat; for you it is unclean.
11You may eat any clean bird.
12But these you may not eat: the eagle, the vulture, the black vulture,
13the red kite, the black kite, any kind of falcon,
14any kind of raven,
15the horned owl, the screech owl, the gull, any kind of hawk,
16the little owl, the great owl, the white owl,
17the desert owl, the osprey, the cormorant,
18the stork, any kind of heron, the hoopoe and the bat.
19All flying insects are unclean to you; do not eat them.
20But any winged creature that is clean you may eat.
22Be sure to set aside a tenth of all that your fields produce each year.
23Eat the tithe of your grain, new wine and olive oil, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks in the presence of the LORD your God at the place he will choose as a dwelling for his Name, so that you may learn to revere the LORD your God always.
24But if that place is too distant and you have been blessed by the LORD your God and cannot carry your tithe (because the place where the LORD will choose to put his Name is so far away),
25then exchange your tithe for silver, and take the silver with you and go to the place the LORD your God will choose.
26Use the silver to buy whatever you like: cattle, sheep, wine or other fermented drink, or anything you wish. Then you and your household shall eat there in the presence of the LORD your God and rejoice.
27And do not neglect the Levites living in your towns, for they have no allotment or inheritance of their own.
28At the end of every three years, bring all the tithes of that year's produce and store it in your towns,
29so that the Levites (who have no allotment or inheritance of their own) and the foreigners, the fatherless and the widows who live in your towns may come and eat and be satisfied, and so that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hands.
Chapter 15
1At the end of every seven years you must cancel debts. 2This is how it is to be done: Every creditor shall cancel any loan they have made to a fellow Israelite. They shall not require payment from anyone among their own people, because the LORD's time for canceling debts has been proclaimed. 3You may require payment from a foreigner, but you must cancel any debt your fellow Israelite owes you. 4However, there need be no poor people among you, for in the land the LORD your God is giving you to possess as your inheritance, he will richly bless you, 5if only you fully obey the LORD your God and are careful to follow all these commands I am giving you today. 6For the LORD your God will bless you as he has promised, and you will lend to many nations but will borrow from none. You will rule over many nations but none will rule over you.
7If anyone is poor among your fellow Israelites in any of the towns of the land the LORD your God is giving you, do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward them.
8Rather, be openhanded and freely lend them whatever they need.
9Be careful not to harbor this wicked thought: 'The seventh year, the year for canceling debts, is near,' so that you do not show ill will toward the needy among your fellow Israelites and give them nothing. They may then appeal to the LORD against you, and you will be found guilty of sin.
10Give generously to them and do so without a grudging heart; then because of this the LORD your God will bless you in all your work and in everything you put your hand to.
11There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your fellow Israelites who are poor and needy in your land.
12If any of your people--Hebrew men or women--sell themselves to you and serve you six years, in the seventh year you must let them go free.
13And when you release them, do not send them away empty-handed.
14Supply them liberally from your flock, your threshing floor and your winepress. Give to them as the LORD your God has blessed you.
15Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and the LORD your God redeemed you. That is why I give you this command today.
16But if your servant says to you, 'I do not want to leave you,' because he loves you and your family and is well off with you,
17then take an awl and push it through his earlobe into the door, and he will become your servant for life. Do the same for your female servant.
19Set apart for the LORD your God every firstborn male of your herds and flocks. Do not put the firstborn of your cows to work, and do not shear the firstborn of your sheep.
20Each year you and your family are to eat them in the presence of the LORD your God at the place he will choose.
21If an animal has a defect, is lame or blind, or has any serious flaw, you must not sacrifice it to the LORD your God.
22You are to eat it in your own towns. Both the ceremonially unclean and the clean may eat it, as if it were gazelle or deer.
23But you must not eat the blood; pour it out on the ground like water.
Chapter 16
1Observe the month of Aviv and celebrate the Passover of the LORD your God, because in the month of Aviv he brought you out of Egypt by night. 2Sacrifice as the Passover to the LORD your God an animal from your flock or herd at the place the LORD will choose as a dwelling for his Name. 3Do not eat it with bread made with yeast, but for seven days eat unleavened bread, the bread of affliction, because you left Egypt in haste--so that all the days of your life you may remember the time of your departure from Egypt. 4Let no yeast be found in your possession in all your land for seven days. Do not let any of the meat you sacrifice on the evening of the first day remain until morning.
5You must not sacrifice the Passover in any town the LORD your God gives you
6except in the place he will choose as a dwelling for his Name. There you must sacrifice the Passover in the evening, when the sun goes down, on the anniversary of your departure from Egypt.
7Roast it and eat it at the place the LORD your God will choose. Then in the morning return to your tents.
8For six days eat unleavened bread and on the seventh day hold an assembly to the LORD your God and do no work.
9Count off seven weeks from the time you begin to put the sickle to the standing grain.
10Then celebrate the Festival of Weeks to the LORD your God by giving a freewill offering in proportion to the blessings the LORD your God has given you.
11And rejoice before the LORD your God at the place he will choose as a dwelling for his Name--you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, the Levites in your towns, and the foreigners, the fatherless and the widows living among you.
12Remember that you were slaves in Egypt, and follow carefully these decrees.
13Celebrate the Festival of Tabernacles for seven days after you have gathered the produce of your threshing floor and your winepress.
14Be joyful at your festival--you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, and the Levites, the foreigners, the fatherless and the widows who live in your towns.
15For seven days celebrate the festival to the LORD your God at the place the LORD will choose. For the LORD your God will bless you in all your harvest and in all the work of your hands, and your joy will be complete.
16Three times a year all your men must appear before the LORD your God at the place he will choose: at the Festival of Unleavened Bread, the Festival of Weeks and the Festival of Tabernacles. No one should appear before the LORD empty-handed:
17Each of you must bring a gift in proportion to the way the LORD your God has blessed you.
18Appoint judges and officials for each of your tribes in every town the LORD your God is giving you, and they shall judge the people fairly.
19Do not pervert justice or show partiality. Do not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and twists the words of the innocent.
20Follow justice and justice alone, so that you may live and possess the land the LORD your God is giving you.
21Do not set up any wooden Asherah pole beside the altar you build to the LORD your God,
22and do not erect a sacred stone, for these the LORD your God hates.
2If a man or woman living among you in one of the towns the LORD gives you is found doing evil in the eyes of the LORD your God in violation of his covenant,
3and contrary to my command has worshiped other gods, bowing down to them or to the sun or the moon or the stars in the sky,
4and this has been brought to your attention, then you must investigate it thoroughly. If it is true and it has been proved that this detestable thing has been done in Israel,
5take the man or woman who has done this evil deed to your city gate and stone that person to death.
6On the testimony of two or three witnesses a person is to be put to death, but no one is to be put to death on the testimony of only one witness.
7The hands of the witnesses must be the first in putting that person to death, and then the hands of all the people. You must purge the evil from among you.
8If cases come before your courts that are too difficult for you to judge--whether bloodshed, lawsuits or assaults--take them to the place the LORD your God will choose.
9Go to the Levitical priests and to the judge who is in office at that time. Inquire of them and they will give you the verdict.
10You must act according to the decisions they give you at the place the LORD will choose. Be careful to do everything they instruct you to do.
11Act according to whatever they teach you and the decisions they give you. Do not turn aside from what they tell you, to the right or to the left.
12Anyone who shows contempt for the judge or for the priest who stands ministering there to the LORD your God is to be put to death. You must purge the evil from Israel.
13All the people will hear and be afraid, and will not be contemptuous again.
14When you enter the land the LORD your God is giving you and have taken possession of it and settled in it, and you say, 'Let us set a king over us like all the nations around us,'
15be sure to appoint over you a king the LORD your God chooses. He must be from among your fellow Israelites. Do not place a foreigner over you, one who is not an Israelite.
16The king, moreover, must not acquire great numbers of horses for himself or make the people return to Egypt to get more of them, for the LORD has told you, 'You are not to go back that way again.'
17He must not take many wives, or his heart will be led astray. He must not accumulate large amounts of silver and gold.
18When he takes the throne of his kingdom, he is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of this law, taken from that of the Levitical priests.
19It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to revere the LORD his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decrees
20and not consider himself better than his fellow Israelites and turn from the law to the right or to the left. Then he and his descendants will reign a long time over his kingdom in Israel.
