12:15 On the other hand, you may slaughter and eat meat as you please when the Lord your God blesses you 18 in all your villages. 19 Both the ritually pure and impure may eat it, whether it is a gazelle or an ibex. 12:16 However, you must not eat blood – pour it out on the ground like water. 12:17 You will not be allowed to eat in your villages your tithe of grain, new wine, olive oil, the firstborn of your herd and flock, any votive offerings you have vowed, or your freewill and personal offerings. 12:18 Only in the presence of the Lord your God may you eat these, in the place he 20 chooses. This applies to you, your son, your daughter, your male and female servants, and the Levites 21 in your villages. In that place you will rejoice before the Lord your God in all the output of your labor. 22 12:19 Be careful not to overlook the Levites as long as you live in the land.
12:20 When the Lord your God extends your borders as he said he would do and you say, “I want to eat meat just as I please,” 23 you may do so as you wish. 24 12:21 If the place he 25 chooses to locate his name is too far for you, you may slaughter any of your herd and flock he 26 has given you just as I have stipulated; you may eat them in your villages 27 just as you wish. 12:22 Like you eat the gazelle or ibex, so you may eat these; the ritually impure and pure alike may eat them. 12:23 However, by no means eat the blood, for the blood is life itself 28 – you must not eat the life with the meat! 12:24 You must not eat it! You must pour it out on the ground like water. 12:25 You must not eat it so that it may go well with you and your children after you; you will be doing what is right in the Lord’s sight. 29 12:26 Only the holy things and votive offerings that belong to you, you must pick up and take to the place the Lord will choose. 30 12:27 You must offer your burnt offerings, both meat and blood, on the altar of the Lord your God; the blood of your other sacrifices 31 you must pour out on his 32 altar while you eat the meat. 12:28 Pay careful attention to all these things I am commanding you so that it may always go well with you and your children after you when you do what is good and right in the sight of the Lord your God.
12:29 When the Lord your God eliminates the nations from the place where you are headed and you dispossess them, you will settle down in their land. 33 12:30 After they have been destroyed from your presence, be careful not to be ensnared like they are; do not pursue their gods and say, “How do these nations serve their gods? I will do the same.” 12:31 You must not worship the Lord your God the way they do! 34 For everything that is abhorrent 35 to him, 36 everything he hates, they have done when worshiping their gods. They even burn up their sons and daughters before their gods!
12:32 (13:1) 37 You 38 must be careful to do everything I am commanding you. Do not add to it or subtract from it! 39
12:1 These are the statutes and ordinances you must be careful to obey as long as you live in the land the Lord, the God of your ancestors, 40 has given you to possess. 41 12:2 You must by all means destroy 42 all the places where the nations you are about to dispossess worship their gods – on the high mountains and hills and under every leafy tree. 43 12:3 You must tear down their altars, shatter their sacred pillars, 44 burn up their sacred Asherah poles, 45 and cut down the images of their gods; you must eliminate their very memory from that place. 12:4 You must not worship the Lord your God the way they worship. 12:5 But you must seek only the place he 46 chooses from all your tribes to establish his name as his place of residence, 47 and you must go there. 12:6 And there you must take your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, the personal offerings you have prepared, 48 your votive offerings, your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks. 12:7 Both you and your families 49 must feast there before the Lord your God and rejoice in all the output of your labor with which he 50 has blessed you. 12:8 You must not do like we are doing here today, with everyone 51 doing what seems best to him, 12:9 for you have not yet come to the final stop 52 and inheritance the Lord your God is giving you. 12:10 When you do go across the Jordan River 53 and settle in the land he 54 is granting you as an inheritance and you find relief from all the enemies who surround you, you will live in safety. 55 12:11 Then you must come to the place the Lord your God chooses for his name to reside, bringing 56 everything I am commanding you – your burnt offerings, sacrifices, tithes, the personal offerings you have prepared, 57 and all your choice votive offerings which you devote to him. 58 12:12 You shall rejoice in the presence of the Lord your God, along with your sons, daughters, male and female servants, and the Levites in your villages 59 (since they have no allotment or inheritance with you). 60 12:13 Make sure you do not offer burnt offerings in any place you wish, 12:14 for you may do so 61 only in the place the Lord chooses in one of your tribal areas – there you may do everything I am commanding you. 62
12:15 On the other hand, you may slaughter and eat meat as you please when the Lord your God blesses you 63 in all your villages. 64 Both the ritually pure and impure may eat it, whether it is a gazelle or an ibex. 12:16 However, you must not eat blood – pour it out on the ground like water. 12:17 You will not be allowed to eat in your villages your tithe of grain, new wine, olive oil, the firstborn of your herd and flock, any votive offerings you have vowed, or your freewill and personal offerings. 12:18 Only in the presence of the Lord your God may you eat these, in the place he 65 chooses. This applies to you, your son, your daughter, your male and female servants, and the Levites 66 in your villages. In that place you will rejoice before the Lord your God in all the output of your labor. 67 12:19 Be careful not to overlook the Levites as long as you live in the land.
12:20 When the Lord your God extends your borders as he said he would do and you say, “I want to eat meat just as I please,” 68 you may do so as you wish. 69 12:21 If the place he 70 chooses to locate his name is too far for you, you may slaughter any of your herd and flock he 71 has given you just as I have stipulated; you may eat them in your villages 72 just as you wish. 12:22 Like you eat the gazelle or ibex, so you may eat these; the ritually impure and pure alike may eat them.
29:1 (28:69) 73 These are the words of the covenant that the Lord commanded Moses to make with the people of Israel in the land of Moab, in addition to the covenant he had made with them at Horeb. 74
29:2 Moses proclaimed to all Israel as follows: “You have seen all that the Lord did 75 in the land of Egypt to Pharaoh, all his servants, and his land. 29:3 Your eyes have seen the great judgments, 76 those signs and mighty wonders. 29:4 But to this very day the Lord has not given you an understanding mind, perceptive eyes, or discerning ears! 77 29:5 I have led you through the desert for forty years. Your clothing has not worn out 78 nor have your sandals 79 deteriorated. 29:6 You have eaten no bread and drunk no wine or beer – all so that you might know that I 80 am the Lord your God! 29:7 When you came to this place King Sihon of Heshbon and King Og of Bashan came out to make war and we defeated them. 29:8 Then we took their land and gave it as an inheritance to Reuben, Gad, and half the tribe of Manasseh.
29:9 “Therefore, keep the terms 81 of this covenant and obey them so that you may be successful in everything you do. 29:10 You are standing today, all of you, before the Lord your God – the heads of your tribes, 82 your elders, your officials, every Israelite man, 29:11 your infants, your wives, and the 83 foreigners living in your encampment, those who chop wood and those who carry water – 29:12 so that you may enter by oath into the covenant the Lord your God is making with you today. 84 29:13 Today he will affirm that you are his people and that he is your God, 85 just as he promised you and as he swore by oath to your ancestors 86 Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 29:14 It is not with you alone that I am making this covenant by oath, 29:15 but with whoever stands with us here today before the Lord our God as well as those not with us here today. 87
29:16 “(For you know how we lived in the land of Egypt and how we crossed through the nations as we traveled. 29:17 You have seen their detestable things 88 and idols of wood, stone, silver, and gold.) 89 29:18 Beware that the heart of no man, woman, clan, or tribe among you turns away from the Lord our God today to pursue and serve the gods of those nations; beware that there is among you no root producing poisonous and bitter fruit. 90 29:19 When such a person 91 hears the words of this oath he secretly 92 blesses himself 93 and says, “I will have peace though I continue to walk with a stubborn spirit.” 94 This will destroy 95 the watered ground with the parched. 96 29:20 The Lord will be unwilling to forgive him, and his intense anger 97 will rage 98 against that man; all the curses 99 written in this scroll will fall upon him 100 and the Lord will obliterate his name from memory. 101 29:21 The Lord will single him out 102 for judgment 103 from all the tribes of Israel according to all the curses of the covenant written in this scroll of the law. 29:22 The generation to come – your descendants who will rise up after you, as well as the foreigner who will come from distant places – will see 104 the afflictions of that land and the illnesses that the Lord has brought on it. 29:23 The whole land will be covered with brimstone, salt, and burning debris; it will not be planted nor will it sprout or produce grass. It will resemble the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the Lord destroyed in his intense anger. 105 29:24 Then all the nations will ask, “Why has the Lord done all this to this land? What is this fierce, heated display of anger 106 all about?” 29:25 Then people will say, “Because they abandoned the covenant of the Lord, the God of their ancestors, which he made with them when he brought them out of the land of Egypt. 29:26 They went and served other gods and worshiped them, gods they did not know and that he did not permit them to worship. 107 29:27 That is why the Lord’s anger erupted against this land, bringing on it all the curses 108 written in this scroll. 29:28 So the Lord has uprooted them from their land in anger, wrath, and great rage and has deported them to another land, as is clear today.” 29:29 Secret things belong to the Lord our God, but those that are revealed belong to us and our descendants 109 forever, so that we might obey all the words of this law.