⁶If your very own brother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you love, or your closest friend secretly entices^m you, saying, “Let us go and worship other gods”ⁿ (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^o to them or listen to them. Show them no pity.^p Do not spare them or shield them. ⁹You must certainly put them to death.^q Your hand^r 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^s 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,^t 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^u 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.^v And if it is true and it has been proved that this detestable thing has been done among you,^w

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Cross references

m Dt 17:2–7; 29:18
nSee Dt 11:28
o Pr 1:10
pSee Dt 7:2
qver 5
rSee Lev 24:14
sSee Ex 20:3
t Dt 17:13; 19:20; 21:21; 1 Ti 5:20
uver 2, 6; Jdg 19:22; 20:13; 1 Sa 2:12; 10:27; 11:12; 25:17; 1 Ki 21:10
v Jdg 20:12
w Dt 17:4