Deuteronomy 12
One Place Where He Will Put His Name
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Destruction of Pagan Shrines
12:1These are the ordinances and judgments you shall take care to practice in the land the Lord, the God of your fathers, gives you as an allotment, all the days you live on the earth.
12:2Completely destroy all the places where those you are inheriting served their gods, on the high mountains, on the hills, and beneath a leafy tree.
12:3Tear down their altars, shatter their pillars, cut down their sacred groves, and burn their gods' carved images with fire; their name shall perish from that place.
12:4You shall not do so to the Lord your God.
The Chosen Sanctuary
12:5Instead, seek and enter the place the Lord your God will choose in one of your tribes, to name His name there so that it may be invoked.
12:6Bring there your whole burnt offerings, sacrifices, firstfruits, vowed offerings, voluntary offerings, and the firstborn of your cattle and sheep.
12:7Eat there before the Lord your God, and rejoice, you and your households, in everything you undertake, because the Lord your God has blessed you.
12:8You shall not do everything we are doing here today, each person doing what is pleasing in his own sight.
12:9For you have not yet come to the rest and inheritance the Lord your God is giving you.
12:10You will cross the Jordan and dwell in the land the Lord your God allots to you. He will give you rest from all your enemies around you, and you will dwell securely.
12:11Bring everything I command you today to the place the Lord your God will choose for His name to be invoked there: your whole burnt offerings, sacrifices, tithes, firstfruits from your hands, gifts, and every choice offering among the gifts you vow to your God.
12:12Rejoice before the Lord your God, you, your sons and daughters, your male and female slaves, and the Levite at your gates, for he has no share or allotment with you.
12:13Take care not to offer your whole burnt offerings at every place you see.
12:14Offer your whole burnt offerings only at the place the Lord your God will choose in one of your tribes, and there do everything I command you today.
Ordinary and Sacrificial Slaughter
12:15Yet you may slaughter and eat meat in every city as much as you desire, according to the blessing the Lord your God has given you. The unclean among you and the clean may eat it together, as gazelle or deer is eaten.
12:16Only, do not eat the blood; pour it on the ground like water.
12:17You may not eat in your cities the tithe of your grain, wine, or oil, the firstborn of your cattle or sheep, any vowed offerings you vow, your pledged offerings, or firstfruits from your hands.
12:18Eat them before the Lord your God at the place the Lord your God will choose for Himself, you, your son and daughter, your male and female slaves, and the newcomer in your cities. Rejoice before the Lord your God in everything you undertake.
12:19Take care not to abandon the Levite for as long as you live on the land.
12:20If the Lord your God enlarges your boundaries as He told you, and you say: I will eat meat, if you desire meat, you may eat meat as much as you desire.
12:21If the place the Lord your God will choose for His name to be invoked there is too far from you, slaughter from your cattle and sheep that God gives you, as I commanded you, and eat in your cities according to your desire.
12:22Eat it as gazelle and deer are eaten; the unclean among you and the clean may eat it alike.
12:23Take great care not to eat blood, for its blood is life. The life shall not be eaten with the meat.
12:24Do not eat it; pour it on the ground like water.
12:25Do not eat it, so that it may go well with you and your children after you, if you do what is good and pleasing before the Lord your God.
12:26Take whatever sacred things you have and your vowed offerings, and go to the place the Lord your God will choose for His name to be invoked there.
12:27Prepare your whole burnt offerings; bring the meat onto the altar of the Lord your God. Pour the blood of your sacrifices against the base of the altar of the Lord your God, and eat the meat.
12:28Keep, hear, and do all the words I command you, so that it may go well with you and your children forever, if you do what is good and pleasing before the Lord your God.
Warning Against Idolatrous Practices
12:29If the Lord your God destroys before you the nations whose land you are entering to inherit, and you take their possession and dwell in their land,
12:30take care not to seek to follow them after they have been destroyed before you. You must not inquire after their gods, saying: How do these nations act toward their gods? I will do the same.
12:31Do not do so to the Lord your God, for they did for their gods the abominations the Lord hated; they burn their sons and daughters in fire for their gods.
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Saints Translation · Liturgical reading edition · V1 · working draft awaiting specialist review.