Deuteronomy 12
12
The Proper Place to Worship
1Here are the laws and rules you must faithfully obey in the land that the Lord God of your ancestors is giving you as your own. You must obey them as long as you live in the land.
2Completely destroy all the worship sites on the high mountains, on the hills, and under every large tree. The people you’re forcing out worship their gods in these places. 3Tear down their altars, crush their sacred stones, burn their poles dedicated to the goddess Asherah, cut down their idols, and wipe out the names of their gods from those places.
4Never worship the Lord your God in the way they worship their gods. 5The Lord your God will choose a place out of all your tribes to live and put his name. Go there and worship him. 6Bring him your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, one-tenth of your income, your contributions, the offerings you vow to bring, your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your cattle, sheep, and goats. 7There, in the presence of the Lord your God, you and your families will eat and enjoy everything you’ve worked for, because the Lord your God has blessed you.
8Never worship in the way that it’s being done here today, where everyone does whatever he considers right. 9Up until now you haven’t come to your place of rest, the property the Lord your God is giving you. 10But you will cross the Jordan River and settle in the land the Lord your God is giving you as your own property. He will give you peace from all your enemies around you so that you will live securely. 11Then the Lord your God will choose a place where his name will live. You must bring everything I command you to that place. Bring your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, one-tenth of your income, your contributions, and all the best offerings you vow to bring to the Lord. 12Enjoy yourselves in the presence of the Lord your God along with your sons, daughters, male and female slaves, and the Levites. (The Levites live in your cities because they have no land of their own as you have.) 13Be careful that you don’t sacrifice your burnt offerings wherever you want. 14Instead, sacrifice them ⌞only⌟ at the place that the Lord will choose in one of your tribes. There you must do everything I command you.
15In whatever city you live, you may slaughter and eat as much meat as you want from what the Lord your God has blessed you with. Clean and unclean #12:15 “Clean” refers to anything that is presentable to God. “Unclean” refers to anything that is not presentable to God. people may eat it as if they were eating a gazelle or a deer. 16But never eat the blood. Pour it on the ground like water. 17You may not eat ⌞the Lord’s offerings⌟ in your cities. Those offerings are: one-tenth of your grain, new wine, and olive oil; the firstborn of your cattle, sheep, or goats; the offerings you vow to bring; your freewill offerings; and your contributions. 18Instead, you, your sons and daughters, male and female slaves, and the Levites who live in your cities must eat these in the presence of the Lord your God at the place he will choose. There in the presence of the Lord your God enjoy everything you’ve worked for. 19Don’t forget to take care of the Levites as long as you live in your land.
20The Lord your God will expand your ⌞country’s⌟ borders as he promised. You will say, “I’m hungry for meat.” Then eat as much meat as you want. 21If the place the Lord your God chooses to put his name is too far away from you, you may slaughter an animal from the herds or flocks that the Lord has given you. Eat as much as you want in your city. I have commanded you to do this. 22Eat it as you would eat a gazelle or a deer: Clean and unclean people may eat it together. 23However, be sure you never eat blood, because blood contains life. Never eat the life with the meat. 24Never eat blood. Pour it on the ground like water. 25If you don’t eat blood, things will go well for you and your descendants. You will be doing what the Lord considers right.
26Take the holy things and the offerings you have vowed to bring, and go to the place the Lord will choose. 27Sacrifice the meat and the blood of your burnt offerings on the altar of the Lord your God. The blood of your sacrifices is to be poured out beside the altar of the Lord your God, but you may eat the meat. 28Be sure you obey all these instructions I’m giving you. Then things will always go well for you and your descendants because you will be doing what the Lord your God considers good and right.
29The Lord your God will destroy the nations where you’re going and force them out of your way. You will take possession of their land and live there. 30After they’ve been destroyed, be careful you aren’t tempted to follow their customs. Don’t even ask about their gods and say, “How did these people worship their gods? We want to do what they did.” 31Never worship the Lord your God in the way they worship their gods, because everything they do for their gods is disgusting to the Lord. He hates it! They even burn their sons and daughters as sacrifices to their gods.#12:31 Deuteronomy 12:32 in English Bibles is Deuteronomy 13:1 in the Hebrew Bible.
32Be sure to do everything I command you. Never add anything to it or take anything away from it.
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Deuteronomy 12: GW
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GOD'S WORD® Translation ©1995, 2003, 2013, 2014, 2019, 2020 by God's Word to the Nations Mission Society. All rights reserved.
Deuteronomy 12
12
Deuteronomy 12
1¶ These are the statutes and rights which ye shall keep to do them in the land which the Lord God of thy fathers gives thee to inherit all the days that ye live upon the land.
2Ye shall utterly destroy all the places, upon which the Gentiles, of whom ye shall inherit, served their gods, upon the high mountains and upon the hills and under every green tree;
3and ye shall overthrow their altars and break their images and burn their groves with fire; and ye shall hew down the statues of their gods and destroy the names of them out of that place.
4Ye shall not do so unto the Lord your God.
5¶ But ye shall seek the place which the Lord your God shall choose out of all your tribes to put his name there for his habitation, and thou shalt go there.
6And there ye shall bring your burnt offerings and your sacrifices and your tithes and the offerings of your hand and your vows and your freewill offerings and the firstborn of your cows and of your sheep;
7and there ye shall eat before the Lord your God, and ye and your households shall rejoice in every work of your hands in which the Lord thy God has blessed thee.
8Ye shall not do after all the things that we do here this day, each man doing what seems right in his own eyes,
9For ye are not as yet come to the rest and to the inheritance, which the Lord your God gives you.
10But when ye pass the Jordan and dwell in the land which the Lord your God gives you to inherit and when he gives you rest from all your enemies round about, so that ye dwell in safety,
11then there shall be a place which the Lord your God shall choose to cause his name to dwell there; there shall ye bring all that I command you: your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and the offerings of your hand and all your choice of vows which ye vow unto the Lord;
12and ye shall rejoice before the Lord your God, ye and your sons and your daughters and your menslaves and your maidslaves and the Levite that is within your gates because he has no part nor inheritance with you.
13Keep thyself that thou not offer thy burnt offerings in any 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 may kill and eat flesh in all thy gates, according to the desire of thy soul, according to the blessing of the Lord thy God which he has given thee; the unclean and the clean may eat thereof, as of the roebuck and as of the hart.
16Only ye shall not eat the blood; ye shall pour it upon the earth as water.
17Thou may not eat within thy gates the tithe of thy grain or of thy wine or of thy oil or the firstborn of thy cows or of thy sheep nor any of thy vows which thou hast promised nor thy freewill offerings or the heave offerings of thy hands.
18But thou must eat them before the Lord thy God in the place which the Lord thy God shall have chosen, thou and thy son and thy daughter and thy manslave and thy maidslave and the Levite that is within thy gates; and thou shalt rejoice before the Lord thy God in all the work of thy hands.
19Keep thyself that thou not forsake the Levite in all thy days upon thy land.
20When the Lord thy God shall enlarge thy border, as he has promised thee, and thou shalt say, I will eat flesh, because thy soul desires to eat flesh, according to all the desire of thy soul thou shalt eat flesh.
21When the place which the Lord thy God shall have chosen to put his name there is far from thee, then thou shalt kill of thy cows and of thy sheep, which the Lord has given thee, as I have commanded thee, and thou shalt eat in thy gates according to all thy soul desires.
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 not to eat the blood; for the blood is the soul (or the life), and thou art not to eat the soul with its flesh.
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.
26But the things which thou hast consecrated and thy vows, thou shalt take and go unto the place which the Lord shall have chosen,
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.
28Keep 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 have cut off the Gentiles from before thee, in the place where thou goest to inherit of them, and thou dost inherit of them and dost dwell in their land,
30keep thyself from being snared by following them, after they are destroyed from before thee; enquire not after their gods, saying, After the manner that these Gentiles served their gods, even so will I do likewise.
31Thou shalt not do so unto the Lord thy God; for every abomination unto the Lord, which he hates, they have done unto their gods; for they have even burnt their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods.
32Keep thyself, and do all that I command you; thou shalt not add to it nor diminish from it.
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The Jubilee Bible 2000 (JUB) by Ransom Press International