⁹You must certainly put them to death. You must be the first to throw stones at them. Then all of the people must do the same thing. ¹⁰Put them to death by throwing stones at them. They tried to turn you away from the Lord your God. He brought you out of Egypt. That’s the land where you were slaves.

¹¹After you kill those who tempted you, all of the people of Israel will hear about it. And they will be too scared to do an evil thing like that again.

¹²The Lord your God is giving you towns to live in. But suppose you hear something bad about one of those towns. ¹³You hear that evil men have appeared among you. They’ve tried to get the people of their town to do something wrong. They’ve said, “Let’s go and worship other gods.” But you haven’t known anything about those gods before. ¹⁴So you must question people. You must check the matter out carefully.

If it’s true, an evil thing has really happened among you. It’s something the Lord hates. ¹⁵Then you must certainly kill with your swords everyone who lives in that town. Destroy it completely. Wipe out its people and livestock. ¹⁶Gather all of the goods of that town into the middle of the main street. Burn the town completely. Burn up everything in it.

It’s a whole burnt offering to the Lord your God. The town must remain a pile of stones forever. It must never be built again.

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