Deuteronomy 12:1-32
12 “These are the usages and laws that you are to take care to live up to in the country your fathers’ God Jehovah has given you to possess, as long as you are alive above ground.
2 “You must destroy all the places where the nations you are disposessing worshiped their gods on the high mountains and the hills and under every verdant tree,
3 and pull down their altars and break up their obelisks and burn up their asherahs and hack away the carvings of their gods and stamp out their name from that place.
4 You shall not do so for your God Jehovah,
5 but shall resort to the place your God Jehovah shall choose out of all your tribes to place his name there for his dwelling, and come there
6 and bring your burnt-offerings an sacrifices and tithes and contributions and vows and voluntary offerings and the firstborn of your flocks and herds,
7 and you shall eat there before your God Jehovah and rejoice over all your undertakings, you and your families, as your God Jehovah has blessed you.
8 “You are not to do just as we do here today, everybody whatever suits him.
9 For as yet you have not come to the rest and establishment that your God Jehovah is giving you;
10 but you are to cross the Jordan and settle in the country your God Jehovah is establishing you in, at he will give you rest from all your enemies on all sides, and you shall live in security,
11 and to the place that your God Jehovah shall choose to install his name in you shall bring everything that I enjoin on you, your burnt-offerings and sacrifices and tithes and contributions as all choicest vows that you vow to Jehovah,
12 and rejoice before your God Jehovah, you and your children and your slaves, and the Levite of your locality, because he does not have share and estate with you.
13 Beware of offering your burnt-offerings in any place you see;
14 but the place Jehovah shall choose in one of your tribes, there you shall offer your burnt-offerings and there you shall do everything that I enjoin on you.
15 “Only you are to kill and eat meat at your pleasure in accordance with Jehovah’s blessing which he has given you, in all your localities: the unclean and the clean shall eat it, as with the gazelle and the deer.
16 Only the blood you shall not eat; you shall let it run out on the ground like water.
17 “You cannot eat in your locality the tithe of your grain, grape-juice, and oil, nor the firstborn of your flocks and herds, nor any vow you vow, nor your voluntary offerings, nor your contributions, but you shall eat such a thing
18 before your God Jehovah in the place your God Jehovah chooses, you and your child and your slave and the Levite of your locality, and rejoice before your God Jehovah in all your undertakings.
19 Take care never to neglect the Levite all the time you are on your soil.
20 “When your God Jehovah broadens your territory as he has promised you, and you think ‘I will eat some meat because I feel an appetite for meat,’ you are to eat meat at your pleasure.
21 When the place Jehovah chooses to place his name there is distant from you, you shall kill animals out of your flocks and herds that Jehovah has given you as I have ordered you, and eat them in your localities at your pleasure,
22 only you shall eat them in such fashion as the gazelle and the deer are eaten, the unclean and the clean shall eat them together.
23 * Only make a point of not eating the blood, because the blood is the life, and you are not to eat the life with the flesh.
24 You shall not eat it; you shall let it run out on the ground like water;
25 you shall not eat it, in order that all may be well with you and with your sons after you because you do what Jehovah approves.
26 Only your dedicated things, such as you shall have, and your vows, you shall take up and come to the place Jehovah shall choose,
27 and you shall make your burnt-offerings, the flesh and the blood, on your God Jehovah’s altar, and of your sacrifices the blood shall be poured on your God Jehovah’s altar but the flesh you shall eat.
28 Take care to listen to all these words that I am enjoining on you, in order that it may be well with you and with your sons after you forever because you do what your God Jehovah likes and approves.
29 “When your God Jehovah exterminates before you the nations you are going among to take their possessions, and you do take their possessions and settle in their country,
30 beware of being stampeded into following them after they have been rooted out before you, and of studying their gods, asking ‘How did these nations worship their gods? I will do the same way.’
31 You are not to do the same way for your God Jehovah, because they had done for their gods all Jehovah’s abhorrences that he hates; for they even burn up their children for their gods.
32 “All the matter that I am enjoining on you you are to take care to live up to; you are not to add to it nor subtract from it.
Footnotes
^ 12:23 Or is the soul, and you are not to eat the soul
