Deuteronomy 12

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1. 1These are the laws and regulations you must carefully follow in the land that the LORD, the God of your ancestors, is giving you to possess — for as long as you live on the earth.
2. 2You must completely destroy every place where the nations you will dispossess served their gods — whether on the high mountains, on the hills, or under every green tree.
3. 3Tear down their altars, smash their sacred pillars, burn their Asherah poles, and chop down the carved images of their gods. Wipe out every trace of their names from those places.
4. 4You must not act this way toward the LORD your God.
5. 5Instead, seek out the place the LORD your God will choose from among all your tribes to establish his name and make his dwelling. That is where you must go.
6. 6Bring your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, your special contributions, your vow offerings, your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks there.
7. 7There you will eat before the LORD your God, and you and your households will rejoice in all that you have put your hand to, in which the LORD your God has blessed you.
8. 8You shall not continue doing as we are doing here today, where everyone does what seems right in their own eyes.
9. 9You haven't yet reached the place of rest and the inheritance that the LORD your God is giving you.
10. 10But once you cross the Jordan and settle in the land the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, and once he gives you peace from all your surrounding enemies so that you live in safety —
11. 11then you must bring everything I'm commanding you to the place the LORD your God chooses to establish his name: your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, your special contributions, and all the best of what you've vowed to the LORD.
12. 12Celebrate there in the presence of the LORD your God — you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, and the Levites living in your towns, since the Levites have no land or inheritance of their own among you.
13. 13Be careful not to offer your burnt offerings just anywhere you please.
14. 14But in the place which 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. 15However, you may kill and eat flesh in all your gates, whatever your soul desires, according to the blessing of the LORD your God that he has given you. The unclean and the clean may eat from it, as from the roebuck and the hart.
16. 16But you must never eat the blood. Pour it out on the ground like water.
17. 17You may not eat the following things in your own towns: the tithe of your grain, new wine, or olive oil; the firstborn of your herds or flocks; anything you've vowed to give; your freewill offerings; or your special contributions.
18. 18Instead, you must eat these in the presence of the LORD your God at the place the LORD your God chooses — you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, and the Levites living in your towns. Celebrate in the LORD your God's presence over everything you've worked for.
19. 19Be careful never to neglect the Levites for as long as you live in your land.
20. 20When the LORD your God enlarges your border, as He has promised you, and you say, 'I will eat meat,' because your soul longs to eat meat, you may eat meat, whatever your soul desires.
21. 21If the place the LORD your God has chosen to put his name is too far from you, then you shall kill from your herd and flock, which the LORD has given you, as I have commanded you, and eat in your gates whatever your soul desires.
22. 22Eat it the same way you'd eat gazelle or deer — anyone may eat it, whether ceremonially clean or unclean.
23. 23Just be absolutely sure you don't eat the blood, because the blood is the life, and you must not eat the life along with the meat.
24. 24Don't eat it. Pour it out on the ground like water.
25. 25Don't eat it, so that things will go well for you and your children after you, because you will be doing what the LORD considers right.
26. 26But take your sacred offerings and your vow offerings and go to the place the LORD chooses.
27. 27Present your burnt offerings — both the meat and the blood — on the altar of the LORD your God. The blood of your sacrifices must be poured out on the altar of the LORD your God, and then you may eat the meat.
28. 28Pay attention to all these words I am commanding you and obey them, so that things will go well for you and your children after you forever, when you do what is good and right in the sight of the LORD your God.
29. 29When the LORD your God cuts off the nations before you, where you go to possess them, and you succeed them and dwell in their land —
30. 30be careful not to fall into their trap by imitating them after they've been wiped out. Don't go looking into their gods, asking, "How did these nations worship their gods? I want to do the same thing."
31. 31You must never worship the LORD your God that way, because these nations did every disgusting thing the LORD hates when they worshiped their gods — they even burned their own sons and daughters as sacrifices to them.
32. 32Everything I command you, be careful to do it. Don't add anything to it, and don't take anything away from it.