Deuteronomy 14

We are people who belong to God our God. So when people die, do not show that you are grieving by gashing yourselves or by shaving the hair on your foreheads like the other peoples do.

We belong to God alone. God chose us from all the other peoples on the earth to be his special people.

Do not eat anything that God detests.

The animals whose meat you are permitted to eat are cattle, sheep, goats,

all kinds of deer, gazelles, wild goats, and mountain sheep.

Those are animals that have split hooves and that also chew the cud.

But there are other animals that chew the cud that you must not eat. Those are camels, rabbits, and rock badgers. They chew the cud, but their hooves are not split. So they are not acceptable for you to eat.

Do not eat pigs. They are unacceptable for you to eat; their hooves are split, but they do not chew the cud. Do not eat the meat of those animals; do not even touch their dead bodies.

You are permitted to eat any fish that has scales and fins.

But anything else that lives in the water that does not have scales and fins, you must not eat, because they must be unacceptable to you.

You are permitted to eat the flesh of any bird that is acceptable to God.

But eagles, vultures, osprey,

buzzards, and all kinds of kites you may not eat.

You are not permitted to eat any kind of crow and raven,

the ostrich, the night hawk, the sea gull, any kind of hawk,

the little owl, the great owl, the white owl,

the pelican, vultures that eat dead animals, and the cormorant.

And you are not permitted to eat the stork, any kind of heron, the hoopoe, and the bat.

All insects with wings and that swarm are unacceptable to God; do not eat them.

But other insects with wings are acceptable to eat.

Do not eat any animal that has died naturally. You may allow foreigners who live among you to eat those things, or you may sell them to other foreigners. But you belong to God our God; those who belong to him are not permitted to eat the flesh of animals whose blood has not been drained out. You must not cook a young sheep or goat in its mother's milk.

Once each year you must set apart a tenth of all the crops that are produced in your fields.

Take them to the place that God our God will choose for you to worship him. There you must eat the tenth of your grain, your wine, your olive oil, and the meat of the firstborn male animals of your cattle and your sheep. Do this in order that you may learn to always honor God, the one who has blessed you by giving you these things.

If the place that God has chosen for you to worship him is very far from your home, with the result that you are not able to take there the tithes of your crops with which God has blessed you, do this:

Sell the tenth of your crops, wrap the money carefully in a cloth, and take it with you to the place of worship that God has chosen.

There, with that money, you may buy whatever you want to—beef or lamb or wine or fermented drinks. And there, in the presence of God, you and your families should eat and drink those things and be happy.

But be sure to not neglect to help the descendants of Levi who live in your towns, because they will not own any land.

At the end of every three years, bring a tithe of all your crops that have been produced in that year and store it in your towns.

That food will be for the descendants of Levi, because they will not have their own land, and for the foreigners who live among you and for orphans and widows who live in your towns. They are permitted to come to where the food is stored and take what they need. Do that in order that God our God will bless you in everything that you do.