Deuteronomy 11; Deuteronomy 12; Deuteronomy 13

Deuteronomy 11

1 "Love the Lord your God and always obey all his laws.

2 Remember today what you have learned about the Lord through your experiences with him. It was you, not your children, who had these experiences. You saw the Lord's greatness, his power, his might,

3 and his miracles. You saw what he did to the king of Egypt and to his entire country.

4 You saw how the Lord completely wiped out the Egyptian army, along with their horses and chariots, by drowning them in the Red Sea when they were pursuing you.

5 You know what the Lord did for you in the desert before you arrived here.

6 You recall what he did to Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab of the tribe of Reuben. In the sight of everyone the earth opened up and swallowed them, along with their families, their tents, and all their servants and animals.

7 Yes, you are the ones who have seen all these great things that the Lord has done.

8 "Obey everything that I have commanded you today. Then you will be able to cross the river and occupy the land that you are about to enter.

9 And you will live a long time in the rich and fertile land that the Lord promised to give your ancestors and their descendants.

10 The land that you are about to occupy is not like the land of Egypt, where you lived before. There, when you planted grain, you had to work hard to irrigate the fields;

11 but the land that you are about to enter is a land of mountains and valleys, a land watered by rain.

12 The Lord your God takes care of this land and watches over it throughout the year.

13 "So then, obey the commands that I have given you today; love the Lord your God and serve him with all your heart.

14 If you do, he will send rain on your land when it is needed, in the autumn and in the spring, so that there will be grain, wine, and olive oil for you,

15 and grass for your livestock. You will have all the food you want.

16 Do not let yourselves be led away from the Lord to worship and serve other gods.

17 If you do, the Lord will become angry with you. He will hold back the rain, and your ground will become too dry for crops to grow. Then you will soon die there, even though it is a good land that he is giving you.

18 "Remember these commands and cherish them. Tie them on your arms and wear them on your foreheads as a reminder.

19 Teach them to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you are resting and when you are working.

20 Write them on the doorposts of your houses and on your gates.

21 Then you and your children will live a long time in the land that the Lord your God promised to give to your ancestors. You will live there as long as there is a sky above the earth.

22 "Obey faithfully everything that I have commanded you: Love the Lord your God, do everything he commands, and be faithful to him.

23 Then he will drive out all those nations as you advance, and you will occupy the land belonging to nations greater and more powerful than you.

24 All the ground that you march over will be yours. Your territory will extend from the desert in the south to the Lebanon Mountains in the north, and from the Euphrates River in the east to the Mediterranean Sea in the west.

25 Wherever you go in that land, the Lord your God will make the people fear you, as he has promised, and no one will be able to stop you.

26 "Today I am giving you the choice between a blessing and a curse -

27 a blessing, if you obey the commands of the Lord your God that I am giving you today;

28 but a curse, if you disobey these commands and turn away to worship other gods that you have never worshiped before.

29 When the Lord brings you into the land that you are going to occupy, you are to proclaim the blessing from Mount Gerizim and the curse from Mount Ebal.

30 (These two mountains are west of the Jordan River in the territory of the Canaanites who live in the Jordan Valley. They are toward the west, not far from the sacred trees of Moreh near the town of Gilgal.)

31 You are about to cross the Jordan River and occupy the land that the Lord your God is giving you. When you take it and settle there,

32 be sure to obey all the laws that I am giving you today.

Deuteronomy 12

1 "Here are the laws that you are to obey as long as you live in the land that the Lord, the God of your ancestors, is giving you. Listen to them!

2 In the land that you are taking, destroy all the places where the people worship their gods on high mountains, on hills, and under green trees.

3 Tear down their altars and smash their sacred stone pillars to pieces. Burn their symbols of the goddess Asherah and chop down their idols, so that they will never again be worshiped at those places.

4 "Do not worship the Lord your God in the way that these people worship their gods.

5 Out of the territory of all your tribes the Lord will choose the one place where the people are to come into his presence and worship him.

6 There you are to offer your sacrifices that are to be burned and your other sacrifices, your tithes and your offerings, the gifts that you promise to the Lord, your freewill offerings, and the first-born of your cattle and sheep.

7 There, in the presence of the Lord your God, who has blessed you, you and your families will eat and enjoy the good things that you have worked for.

8 "When that time comes, you must not do as you have been doing. Until now you have all been worshiping as you please,

9 because you have not yet entered the land that the Lord your God is giving you, where you can live in peace.

10 When you cross the Jordan River, the Lord will let you occupy the land and live there. He will keep you safe from all your enemies, and you will live in peace.

11 The Lord will choose a single place where he is to be worshiped, and there you must bring to him everything that I have commanded: your sacrifices that are to be burned and your other sacrifices, your tithes and your offerings, and those special gifts that you have promised to the Lord.

12 Be joyful there in his presence, together with your children, your servants, and the Levites who live in your towns; remember that the Levites will have no land of their own.

13 You are not to offer your sacrifices wherever you choose;

14 you must offer them only in the one place that the Lord will choose in the territory of one of your tribes. Only there are you to offer your sacrifices that are to be burned and do all the other things that I have commanded you.

15 "But you are free to kill and eat your animals wherever you live. You may eat as many as the Lord gives you. All of you, whether ritually clean or unclean, may eat them, just as you would eat the meat of deer or antelope.

16 But you must not eat their blood; you must pour it out on the ground like water.

17 Nothing that you offer to the Lord is to be eaten in the places where you live: neither the tithes of your grain, your wine, or your olive oil, nor the first-born of your cattle and sheep, the gifts that you promise to the Lord, your freewill offerings, or any other offerings.

18 You and your children, together with your servants and the Levites who live in your towns, are to eat these offerings only in the presence of the Lord your God, in the one place of worship chosen by the Lord your God. And you are to be happy there over everything that you have done.

19 Be sure, also, not to neglect the Levites, as long as you live in your land.

20 "When the Lord your God enlarges your territory, as he has promised, you may eat meat whenever you want to.

21 If the one place of worship is too far away, then, whenever you wish, you may kill any of the cattle or sheep that the Lord has given you, and you may eat the meat at home, as I have told you.

22 Anyone, ritually clean or unclean, may eat that meat, just as he would eat the meat of deer or antelope.

23 Only do not eat meat with blood still in it, for the life is in the blood, and you must not eat the life with the meat.

24 Do not use the blood for food; instead, pour it out on the ground like water.

25 If you obey this command, the Lord will be pleased, and all will go well for you and your descendants.

26 Take to the one place of worship your offerings and the gifts that you have promised the Lord.

27 Offer there the sacrifices which are to be completely burned on the Lord's altar. Also offer those sacrifices in which you eat the meat and pour the blood out on the altar.

28 Obey faithfully everything that I have commanded you, and all will go well for you and your descendants forever, because you will be doing what is right and what pleases the Lord your God.

29 "The Lord your God will destroy the nations as you invade their land, and you will occupy it and settle there.

30 After the Lord destroys those nations, make sure that you don't follow their religious practices, because that would be fatal. Don't try to find out how they worship their gods, so that you can worship in the same way.

31 Do not worship the Lord your God in the way they worship their gods, for in the worship of their gods they do all the disgusting things that the Lord hates. They even sacrifice their children in the fires on their altars.

32 "Do everything that I have commanded you; do not add anything to it or take anything from it.

Deuteronomy 13

1 "Prophets or interpreters of dreams may promise a miracle or a wonder,

2 in order to lead you to worship and serve gods that you have not worshiped before. Even if what they promise comes true,

3 do not pay any attention to them. The Lord your God is using them to test you, to see if you love the Lord with all your heart.

4 Follow the Lord and honor him; obey him and keep his commands; worship him and be faithful to him.

5 But put to death any interpreters of dreams or prophets that tell you to rebel against the Lord, who rescued you from Egypt, where you were slaves. Such people are evil and are trying to lead you away from the life that the Lord has commanded you to live. They must be put to death, in order to rid yourselves of this evil.

6 "Even your brother or your son or your daughter or the wife you love or your closest friend may secretly encourage you to worship other gods, gods that you and your ancestors have never worshiped.

7 Some of them may encourage you to worship the gods of the people who live near you or the gods of those who live far away.

8 But do not let any of them persuade you; do not even listen to them. Show them no mercy or pity, and do not protect them.

9 Kill them! Be the first to stone them, and then let everyone else stone them too.

10 Stone them to death! They tried to lead you away from the Lord your God, who rescued you from Egypt, where you were slaves.

11 Then all the people of Israel will hear what happened; they will be afraid, and no one will ever again do such an evil thing.

12 "When you are living in the towns that the Lord your God gives you, you may hear

13 that some worthless people of your nation have misled the people of their town to worship gods that you have never worshiped before.

14 If you hear such a rumor, investigate it thoroughly; and if it is true that this evil thing did happen,

15 then kill all the people in that town and all their livestock too. Destroy that town completely.

16 Bring together all the possessions of the people who live there and pile them up in the town square. Then burn the town and everything in it as an offering to the Lord your God. It must be left in ruins forever and never again be rebuilt.

17 Do not keep for yourselves anything that was condemned to destruction, and then the Lord will turn from his fierce anger and show you mercy. He will be merciful to you and make you a numerous people, as he promised your ancestors,

18 if you obey all his commands that I have given you today, and do what he requires.