Deuteronomy 13–14

¹‘When there ariseth in your midst a prophet, or a dreamer of a dream, and he hath given unto thee a sign or wonder, ²and the sign and the wonder hath come which he hath spoken of unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods (which thou hast not known), and serve them, ³thou dost not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or unto that dreamer of the dream, for Jehovah your God is trying you, to know whether ye are loving Jehovah your God with all your heart, and with all your soul; ⁴after Jehovah your God ye walk, and Him ye fear, and His commands ye keep, and to His voice ye hearken, and Him ye serve, and to Him ye cleave.

⁵‘And that prophet, or that dreamer of the dream, is put to death, for he hath spoken apostasy against Jehovah your God (who is bringing you out of the land of Egypt, and hath ransomed you out of a house of servants), to drive you out of the way in which Jehovah thy God hath commanded thee to walk, and thou hast put away the evil thing from thy midst.

⁶‘When thy brother—son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend who is as thine own soul—doth move thee, in secret, saying, Let us go and serve other gods—(which thou hast not known, thou and thy fathers, ⁷of the gods of the peoples who are round about you, who are near unto thee, or who are far off from thee, from the end of the earth even unto the end of the earth)— ⁸thou dost not consent to him, nor hearken unto him, nor doth thine eye have pity on him, nor dost thou spare, nor dost thou cover him over.

⁹‘But thou dost surely kill him; thy hand is on him, in the first place, to put him to death, and the hand of all the people last; ¹⁰and thou hast stoned him with stones, and he hath died, for he hath sought to drive thee away from Jehovah thy God, who is bringing thee out of the land of Egypt, out of a house of servants; ¹¹and all Israel do hear and fear, and add not to do like this evil thing in thy midst.

¹²‘When thou hearest, in one of thy cities which Jehovah thy God is giving to thee to dwell there, one saying, ¹³Men, sons of worthlessness, have gone out of thy midst, and they force away the inhabitants of their city, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which ye have not known— ¹⁴and thou hast enquired, and searched, and asked diligently, and lo, truth; the thing is established; this abomination hath been done in thy midst:

¹⁵‘Thou dost surely smite the inhabitants of that city by the mouth of the sword; devoting it, and all that is in it, even its cattle, by the mouth of the sword; ¹⁶and all its spoil thou dost gather unto the midst of its broad place, and hast burned with fire the city and all its spoil completely, before Jehovah thy God, and it hath been a heap age-during, it is not built any more; ¹⁷and there doth not cleave to thy hand any of the devoted thing, so that Jehovah doth turn back from the fierceness of His anger, and hath given to thee mercies, and loved thee, and multiplied thee, as He hath sworn to thy fathers, ¹⁸when thou dost hearken to the voice of Jehovah thy God, to keep all his commands which I am commanding thee to-day, to do that which is right in the eyes of Jehovah thy God.

Chapter 14

¹‘Sons ye are to Jehovah your God; ye do not cut yourselves, nor make baldness between your eyes for the dead; ²for a holy people art thou to Jehovah thy God, and on thee hath Jehovah fixed to be to Him for a people, a peculiar treasure, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the ground.

³‘Thou dost not eat any abominable thing;

⁴‘this is the beast which ye do eat: ox, lamb of the sheep, or kid of the goats, ⁵hart, and roe, and fallow deer, and wild goat, and pygarg, and wild ox, and chamois; ⁶and every beast dividing the hoof, and cleaving the cleft into two hoofs, bringing up the cud, among the beasts—it ye do eat.

⁷‘Only, this ye do not eat, of those bringing up the cud, and of those dividing the cloven hoof: the camel, and the hare, and the rabbit, for they are bringing up the cud but the hoof have not divided; unclean they are to you; ⁸and the sow, for it is dividing the hoof, and not bringing up the cud, unclean it is to you; of their flesh ye do not eat, and against their carcase ye do not come.

⁹‘This ye do eat of all that are in the waters; all that hath fins and scales ye do eat; ¹⁰and anything which hath not fins and scales ye do not eat; unclean it is to you.

¹¹‘Any clean bird ye do eat; ¹²and these are they of which ye do not eat: the eagle, and the ossifrage, and the ospray, ¹³and the glede, and the kite, and the vulture after its kind, ¹⁴and every raven after its kind; ¹⁵and the owl, and the night-hawk, and the cuckoo, and the hawk after its kind; ¹⁶the little owl, and the great owl, and the swan, ¹⁷and the pelican, and the gier-eagle, and the cormorant, ¹⁸and the stork, and the heron after its kind, and the lapwing, and the bat; ¹⁹and every teeming thing which is flying, unclean it is to you; they are not eaten; ²⁰any clean fowl ye do eat.

²¹‘Ye do not eat of any carcase; to the sojourner who is within thy gates thou dost give it, and he hath eaten it; or sell it to a stranger; for a holy people thou art to Jehovah thy God; thou dost not boil a kid in its mother’s milk.

²²‘Thou dost certainly tithe all the increase of thy seed which the field is bringing forth year by year; ²³and thou hast eaten before Jehovah thy God, in the place where He doth choose to cause His name to tabernacle, the tithe of thy corn, of thy new wine, and of thine oil, and the firstlings of thy herd, and of thy flock, so that thou dost learn to fear Jehovah thy God all the days.

²⁴‘And when the way is too much for thee, that thou art not able to carry it—when the place is too far off from thee which Jehovah thy God doth choose to put His name there, when Jehovah thy God doth bless thee;— ²⁵then thou hast given it in money, and hast bound up the money in thy hand, and gone unto the place on which Jehovah thy God doth fix; ²⁶and thou hast given the money for any thing which thy soul desireth, for oxen, and for sheep, and for wine, and for strong drink, and for any thing which thy soul asketh, and thou hast eaten there before Jehovah thy God, and thou hast rejoiced, thou and thy house. ²⁷As to the Levite who is within thy gates, thou dost not forsake him, for he hath no portion and inheritance with thee.

²⁸‘At the end of three years thou dost bring out all the tithe of thine increase in that year, and hast placed it within thy gates; ²⁹and come in hath the Levite (for he hath no part and inheritance with thee), and the sojourner, and the fatherless, and the widow, who are within thy gates, and they have eaten, and been satisfied, so that Jehovah thy God doth bless thee in all the work of thy hand which thou dost.

Chapter 15