Deuteronomy 12

These {are} the statutes and the ordinances that you shall keep doing in the land that God, the God of your fathers, has given to you to possess it, all the days that you live on the earth.

Destroying, you shall destroy all the places that the nations that you shall dispossess them served their gods there, on the high mountains and on the hills and under every green tree. \*

And you shall break down their altars and shatter their stone pillars and burn their Asherah in the fire. And you shall cut down the carved figures of their gods and destroy their name out of that place. \*

You shall not do thus to God your God. \*

But to the place that God your God will choose out of all your tribes to put his name there, you shall search for his dwelling, and there you shall go.

And there you shall bring your burnt offerings and your sacrifices and your tithes and the contribution of your hand and your offerings for vows and your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks. \*

And there you shall eat to the face of God your God and rejoice in all the sending out of your hand, you and your households, where God your God has blessed you. \*

You shall not do as everything that we are doing here today, {every} man {doing} whatever {is} right in his eyes;

for until now you have not come to the rest and to the inheritance that God your God is giving to you. \*

And you will cross the Jordan and live in the land that God your God is causing you to inherit, and he will cause you to rest from all your surrounding enemies, and you will live safely. \*

And it will be that the place that God your God will choose to make his name stay there, there you will bring all that I command you: your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and the contribution of your hand and all your choice offerings for vows that you will vow to God. \*

And you will rejoice to the face of God your God—you and your sons and your daughters and your male servants and your female servants and the Levites who {are} within your gate, because he has no portion nor inheritance among you. \*

Watch yourself lest you offer your burnt offerings at every place that you see;

except at the place that God will choose in one of your tribes, there you will offer your burnt offerings, and there you will do everything that I command you. \*

Only, you may kill and eat animals within all your gates, in all the desire of your soul, according to the blessing of God your God that he has given to you; the unclean and the clean may eat it, such as the gazelle and the deer.

Only you shall not eat the blood; you shall pour it on the earth like water. \*

You are not allowed to eat within your gates from the tithe of your grain and your new wine and your oil and the firstborn of your herd or flock, and any of your vows that you vow and your freewill offerings and the contribution of your hand. \*

But you shall eat them to the face of God your God in the place that which God your God will choose—you and your son and your daughter and your male servant and your female servant and the Levite who {is} within your gates; and you shall rejoice to the face of God your God in all the sending out of your hand.

Watch yourself lest you forsake the Levite all your days on your land. \*

When God your God broadens your borders, as he has spoken to you, and you say, ‘I will eat meat,’ due to the desire of your soul to eat meat, you may eat meat in all the desire of your soul. \*

If the place that God your God chooses to put his name there is too far from you, then you may sacrifice from your herd and from your flock that God has given to you, as I have commanded you; and you may eat within your gates, in all the desire of your soul.

Surely as the gazelle and the deer are eaten, so you will eat it; the unclean and the clean alike may eat it. \*

Only be strong, do not eat the blood, for the blood is the life, and do not eat the life with the meat.

Do not eat it; you shall pour it out on the earth like water.

Do not eat it, so that it may go well for you and for your sons after you, when you will do right in the eyes of God. \*

But your sacred things that you have and your vow offerings, you shall take and go to the place that God will choose.

And you shall make your burnt offerings, the meat and the blood, on the altar of God your God; and the blood of your sacrifices shall be poured out on the altar of God your God, and you shall eat the meat. \*

Keep and listen to all these words that I command you so that it may go well for you and for your sons after you until forever, when you do the good and the right in the eyes of God your God. \*

When God your God cuts off the nations from your face, when you go in there to dispossess them, and you dispossess them and live in their land,

watch yourself, lest you become trapped after them, after they are destroyed from your face, and lest you inquire for their gods, saying, ‘How do these nations serve their gods? And thus I also will do.’ \*

Do not do thus to God your God, for every abomination {to} God, which he hates, they have done for their gods; for they even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire for their gods.

Every word that I command you, keep doing it. Do not add on it and do not take away from it. \*