Deuteronomy Chapter 12 1 These are the statutes and judgments that you shall be careful to do in the land that the Lord God of your fathers gives you to possess it, all the days that you live upon the earth.2 You shall completely destroy all the places in which the nations that you shall possess served their gods, on the high mountains and on the hills and under every green tree.3 You shall overthrow their altars and break their pillars, and burn their pillars with fire. And you shall cut down the carved images of their gods, and destroy their names out of that place.4 You shall not do so to the Lord your God.5 But you shall seek to the place that the Lord your God shall choose out of all your tribes to put His name there, even to His dwelling place you shall seek, and there you shall come.6 There you shall bring your burnt offerings, and your sacrifices, and your tithes, and heave offering of your hand, and your vows, and your free will offerings, and the firstborn of your herds and of your flocks.7 There you shall eat before the Lord your God, and you shall rejoice in all that you put your hand to, you and your households in which the Lord your God has blessed you.8 You shall not do according to all that we do here today, each doing whatever is right in his own eyes.9 For you have not as yet come to the rest and to the inheritance that the Lord your God gives you.10 But when you go over Jordan and live in the land that the Lord your God gives you to inherit, and He gives you rest from all your enemies all around, so that you live in safety,11 then there shall be a place that the Lord your God shall choose to cause His name to live there. There you shall bring all that I command you, your burnt offerings, and your sacrifices, your tithes, and the heave offering of your hand, and all your choice vows that you vow to the Lord.12 You shall rejoice before the Lord your God, you, your sons, your daughters, your men servants, your female servants, and the Levite that is within your gates because he has no part nor inheritance with you.13 Take heed so that you do not offer your burnt offerings in every place that you see.14 But in the place that the Lord shall choose in one of your tribes, there you shall offer your burnt offerings, and there you shall do all that I command you.15 However, with all your soul's desire you shall sacrifice and eat flesh in all your gates, according to the blessing of the Lord your God that He has given you, the clean and the unclean, one may eat, as of the gazelle, and as of the hart.16 Only you shall not eat the blood. You shall pour it on the earth like water.17 You may not eat inside your gates the tithe of your grain or of your wine or of your oil, or the firstborn of your herds or of your flock, or any of your vows that you vow, or your free will offerings or the heave offering of your hand.18 But you must eat them before the Lord your God in the place that the Lord your God shall choose, you, and your son, and your daughter, and your man servant, and your maid servant, and the Levite within your gates. And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God in all that you put your hand to.19 Take heed so that you do not forsake the Levite as long as you live on the earth.20 When the Lord your God shall make your border larger, as He has promised you, and you shall say, I will eat flesh, because your soul longs to eat flesh. You may eat flesh, whatever your soul desires.21 If the place that the Lord your God has chosen to put his name there is too far from you, then you shall kill of your herd and of your flock that the Lord has given you, as I have commanded you, and you shall eat in your gates whatever your soul desires.22 Even as the gazelle and the hart is eaten, so you shall eat them. The unclean and the clean shall eat of them alike.23 Only be sure that you do not eat the blood. For the blood is the life. And you may not eat the life with the flesh.24 You shall not eat it. You shall pour it on the earth like water.25 You shall not eat it, so that it may go well with you and with your sons after you, when you shall do what is right in the sight of the Lord.26 Only your holy things that you have, and your vows, you shall take and go to the place that the Lord shall choose.27 You shall offer your burnt offerings, the flesh and the blood, on the altar of the Lord your God. And the blood of your sacrifices shall be poured out on the altar of the Lord your God, and you shall eat the flesh.28 Be careful to hear all these words that I command you, so that it may go well with you and with your sons after you forever, when you do the good and right in the sight of the Lord your God.29 When the Lord your God shall cut off the nations before you, where you go to possess them, and you take their place and live in their land,30 Take heed so that you do not become snared by following them, after they are destroyed from before you, and that you do not ask about their gods saying, How did these nations serve their gods that I too may do likewise?31 You shall not do so to the Lord your God. For every abomination to the Lord that He hates, they have done to their gods. Even their sons and their daughters they have burned in the fire to their gods.32 All the things I command you, be careful to do it. You shall not add to it, nor take away from it.
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