Deuteronomy 12
12
Regulations and the case laws:
Worship at the location the LORD selects
1These are the regulations and the case laws that you must carefully keep in the fertile land the LORD, your ancestors’ God, has given to you to possess for as long as you live on that land:
2You must completely destroy every place where the nations that you are displacing worshipped their gods—whether on high mountains or hills or under leafy green trees. 3Rip down their altars and shatter their sacred stones. Burn their sacred poles#12.3 Heb asherim, perhaps objects devoted to the goddess Asherah with fire. Hack their gods’ idols into pieces. Wipe out their names from that place.
4Don’t act like they did toward the LORD your God!
5Instead, you must search for the location the LORD your God will select from all your tribes to put his name there, as his residence, and you must go there. 6You must bring your entirely burned offerings, your sacrifices, your tenth-part gifts, your contributions,#12.6 Or the contribution of your hands; also in 12:11, 17 your payments for solemn promises, your spontaneous gifts, and the oldest offspring of your herds and flocks to that place. 7You will have a feast there, each of you and your families, in the LORD your God’s presence, and you will celebrate all you have done because the LORD your God has blessed you. 8Don’t act like we’ve been acting here lately—everyone doing what seems right to them— 9because up to this point you haven’t yet reached the place of rest or the inheritance the LORD your God is giving you. 10But you are about to cross the Jordan River and will settle in the land the LORD your God is giving you as your inheritance. Then he will give you rest from all your enemies on every side so that you live safely and securely. 11At that point, you must bring all that I am commanding you, your entirely burned offerings, your sacrifices, your tenth-part gifts, your contributions, and all your best payments that you solemnly promised to the LORD, to the location the LORD your God selects for his name to reside. 12Then you will rejoice in the LORD your God’s presence: each of you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, and the Levites who dwell in your cities because they have no designated inheritance.
13But watch yourself! Make sure you don’t offer up your entirely burned offerings in just any place you see. 14No, only at the location the LORD selects from one of your tribal areas—that’s where you must offer up your entirely burned offerings and that’s where you must perform everything I’m telling you. 15However, whenever you wish, you may slaughter and eat meat, as the LORD your God sees fit to bless you with such in your cities. People who are polluted and people who are purified can join in the feast, as they would if they were eating gazelle or deer. 16But you must not consume any of the animals’ blood. Pour it out on the ground, just like water.
17Within your cities you are not allowed to eat any of the following: your tenth-part gifts of grain, wine, and oil; the oldest offspring of your herds and flocks; any of the payments you have solemnly promised; your spontaneous gifts or your contributions. 18Only in the presence of the LORD your God, at the location the LORD your God selects, can you eat these things—that holds true for you, your son and daughter, your male and female servant, and the Levite who lives in your city. Then celebrate all you have done in the LORD your God’s presence. 19But watch yourself: as long as you are on the land, don’t forget about the Levites.
20Once the LORD your God has enlarged your territory, as he promised you, and you think to yourself, I’d like to eat some meat (because you have the desire to do so), feel free to do so whenever you want. 21But if the location that the LORD your God will choose to put his name is far away from where you live, then slaughter an animal from your herd or flock that the LORD has given you, just as I have commanded you, and eat it in your cities whenever you wish. 22But be sure to eat it as if it were gazelle or deer. People who are polluted and people who are purified can feast on it together.
23Furthermore, make sure that you don’t consume any of the blood, because blood is life. You must not consume the life along with the meat. 24You must not consume any of it. Pour it out on the ground, just like water. 25You must not consume any of it so that things go well for you and for your children later because you did what was right in the LORD’s eyes.
26Note that you must bring your sacred offerings and your payments for solemn promises to the location the LORD selects, 27offering up your entirely burned sacrifices—both meat and blood—on the LORD your God’s altar. The blood from your sacrifices must be poured out on the LORD your God’s altar, but you are allowed to eat the meat. 28Observe and obey all these words that I am commanding you so that things always go well for you and your children later because you did what was good and right in the LORD your God’s eyes.
29Once the LORD your God has removed from before you all the nations that you are entering and taking possession of, and you have displaced them and are living in their land, 30then watch yourself! Don’t be trapped by following their practices after they’ve been wiped out before you. Don’t go investigating their gods, thinking, How did these nations worship their gods? I want to do the very same thing!
31Don’t act like they did toward the LORD your God because they did things for their gods that are detestable to the LORD, which he hates. They even burned their own sons and daughters with fire for their gods!
32 # 12.32 13:1 in Heb Everything I’m commanding you, you must do it with utmost care! Don’t add anything to it or take anything away from it.
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Deuteronomy 12: CEB
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2011 Common English Bible. All rights reserved.
Deuteronomy 12
12
1 THESE ARE the statutes and ordinances which you shall be watchful to do in the land which the Lord, the God of your fathers, gives you to possess all the days you live on the earth.
2 You shall surely destroy all the places where the nations you dispossess served their gods, upon the high mountains and the hills and under every green tree.
3 You shall break down their altars and dash in pieces their pillars and burn their Asherim with fire; you shall hew down the graven images of their gods and destroy their name out of that place.
4 You shall not behave so toward the Lord your God.
5 But you shall seek the place which the Lord your God shall choose out of all your tribes to put His Name and make His dwelling place, and there shall you come;
6 And there you shall bring your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and the offering of your hands, and your vows and your freewill offerings, and the firstlings of your herd and of your flock.
7 And there you shall eat before the Lord your God, and you shall rejoice in all to which you put your hand, you and your households, in which the Lord your God has blessed you.
8 You shall not do according to all we do here [in the camp] this day, every man doing whatever looks right in his own eyes.
9 For you have not yet come to the rest and to the inheritance which the Lord your God gives you.
10 But when you go over the Jordan and dwell in the land which the Lord your God causes you to inherit, and He gives you rest from all your enemies round about so that you dwell in safety,
11 Then there shall be a place which the Lord your God shall choose to cause His Name [and His Presence] to dwell there; to it you shall bring all that I command you: your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes and what the hand presents [as a first gift from the fruits of the ground], and all your choicest offerings which you vow to the Lord.
12 And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God, you and your sons and your daughters, and your menservants and your maidservants, and the Levite that is within your towns, since he has no part or inheritance with you.
13 Be watchful not to offer your burnt offerings in every place you see.
14 But in the place which the Lord shall choose in one of your tribes, there you shall offer your burnt offerings, and there you shall do all I command you.
15 However, you may kill and eat flesh in any of your towns whenever you desire, according to the provision for the support of life with which the Lord your God has blessed you; those [ceremonially] unclean and the clean may eat of it, as of the gazelle and the hart.
16 Only you shall not eat the blood; you shall pour it upon the ground as water.
17 You may not eat within your towns the tithe of your grain or of your new wine or of your oil, or the firstlings of your herd or flock, or anything you have vowed, or your freewill offerings, or the offerings from your hand [of garden products].
18 But you shall eat them before the Lord your God in the place which the Lord your God shall choose, you and your son and your daughter, your manservant and your maidservant, and the Levite that is within your towns; and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God in all that you undertake.
19 Take heed not to forsake or neglect the Levite [God's minister] as long as you live in your land.
20 When the Lord your God enlarges your territory, as He promised you, and you say, I will eat flesh, because you crave flesh, you may eat flesh whenever you desire.
21 If the place where the Lord your God has chosen to put His Name [and Presence] is too far from you, then you shall kill from your herd or flock which the Lord has given you, as I [Moses] have commanded you; eat in your towns as much as you desire.
22 Just as the roebuck and the hart is eaten, so you may eat of it [but not offer it]; the unclean and the clean alike may eat of it.
23 Only be sure that you do not eat the blood, for the blood is the life, and you may not eat the life with the flesh.
24 You shall not eat it; you shall pour it out on the earth like water.
25 You 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.
26 Only your holy things which you have [to offer] and what you have vowed you shall take, and go to the place [before the sanctuary] which the Lord shall choose.
27 And offer your burnt offerings, the flesh and the blood, upon 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 may eat the flesh.
28 Be watchful and obey all these words which 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 to dispossess, and you dispossess them and live in their land,
30 Be watchful that you are not ensnared into following them after they have been destroyed before you and that you do not inquire after their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their gods? We will do likewise.
31 You shall not do so to the Lord your God, for every abominable thing which the Lord hates they have done for their gods. For even their sons and their daughters they have burned in the fire to their gods.
32 Whatever I command you, be watchful to do it; you shall not add to it or diminish it.
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