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Deuteronomy 12

1“These are the statutes and judgments you must take care to carry out in the land Yahweh, the God of your fathers, has given you to possess, all the days you live on the ground. 2You must completely destroy all the places where the nations you are dispossessing served their gods, on the high mountains, on the hills, and under every flourishing tree. 3Tear down their altars, smash their standing stones, burn their Asherah poles in the fire, cut down the carved images of their gods, and make their name perish from that place. 4You must not do the same to Yahweh your God. 5Rather, seek the place Yahweh your God will choose from all your tribes to put his name there as his dwelling, and go there. 6Bring there your burnt offerings, sacrifices, tithes, the contribution of your hand, your vowed offerings, freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks. 7There you and your households will eat before Yahweh your God and rejoice in everything you put your hand to, in which Yahweh your God has blessed you.

8“You must not do everything we are doing here today, each person whatever is right in his own eyes, 9because you have not yet come to the rest and inheritance Yahweh your God is giving you. 10But you will cross the Jordan and live in the land Yahweh your God is giving you as an inheritance. He will give you rest from all your enemies around you, and you will live securely. 11Then to the place Yahweh your God chooses for his name to dwell, you must bring everything I command you: your burnt offerings and sacrifices, your tithes and the contribution of your hand, and all your choice vowed offerings that you vow to Yahweh. 12Rejoice before Yahweh your God—you, your sons, your daughters, your male slaves, your female slaves, and the Levite within your towns, because he has no share or inheritance with you.

13“Take care not to offer your burnt offerings at any place you see, 14but only at the place Yahweh chooses in one of your tribes. There you must offer your burnt offerings, and there you must do everything I command you. 15Yet you may slaughter and eat meat in any of your towns, as much as you desire, according to the blessing Yahweh your God has given you. The unclean and the clean alike may eat it, as they eat gazelle and deer. 16Only you must not eat the blood. Pour it out on the earth like water. 17You may not eat within your towns the tithe of your grain, new wine, or oil, the firstborn of your herds or flocks, any of your vowed offerings that you vow, your freewill offerings, or the contribution of your hand. 18Rather, you must eat it before Yahweh your God at the place Yahweh your God chooses—you, your son, your daughter, your male slave, your female slave, and the Levite within your towns. Rejoice before Yahweh your God in everything you put your hand to. 19Take care that you do not abandon the Levite all your days on your ground.

20“When Yahweh your God enlarges your territory as he promised you, and you say, ‘I want to eat meat,’ because you desire to eat meat, you may eat meat as much as you desire. 21If the place Yahweh your God chooses to put his name is far from you, you may slaughter from your herd or flock that Yahweh has given you, as I have commanded you, and eat within your towns as much as you desire. 22Just as gazelle and deer are eaten, so you may eat it; the unclean and the clean may eat it together. 23Only be firm about not eating the blood, because the blood is the life. You must not eat the life with the flesh. 24You must not eat it. Pour it out on the earth like water. 25You must not eat it, so that it may go well with you and your sons after you when you do what is right in Yahweh’s eyes. 26But take your holy things and your vowed offerings and go to the place Yahweh chooses. 27Offer your burnt offerings, the flesh and the blood, on the altar of Yahweh your God. The blood of your sacrifices is to be poured out on the altar of Yahweh your God, but you may eat the flesh. 28Take care to listen to all these words I command you, so that it may go well with you and your sons after you forever, when you do what is good and right in the eyes of Yahweh your God.

29“When Yahweh your God cuts off before you the nations you are entering to dispossess, and you dispossess them and live in their land, 30take care that you are not ensnared into following them after they have been destroyed before you. Do not inquire about their gods, saying, ‘How did these nations serve their gods? I will do the same.’ 31You must not do the same to Yahweh your God, because they have done for their gods every abomination Yahweh hates. They even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire for their gods. 32Take care to carry out everything I command you. You must not add to it or take away from it.

Translation notes 4

12:2–5 — Destruction and the chosen place. Verse 4 forbids treating Yahweh in the same way; in context it introduces the contrast between the many cult sites and the place he chooses. “His dwelling” represents a compressed Hebrew expression that can also be connected with seeking his presence. The passage does not name Jerusalem or another town, and none has been supplied.

12:6–19 — Contributions, households, and ordinary meat. “Contribution of your hand” retains the offering expression. “What you put your hand to” means one’s undertakings. Actual male and female slaves join the household celebration. The unclean and clean are people who may both eat ordinary slaughtered meat; the permission does not make unclean animal species edible.

12:20–27 — Blood and life. Nephesh is “life” in “the blood is the life.” The blood prohibition applies even when meat may be slaughtered locally. Blood from sacrifices belongs at the altar; the text distinguishes this from pouring ordinary slaughter blood onto the ground. “Flesh” preserves the bodily term in the stated relation between blood and meat.

12:29–32 — Child sacrifice and numbering. The burning of sons and daughters is explicit and has not been softened to a general reference to religious practices. Verse 32 is numbered 13:1 in the Hebrew source; the following chapter consequently differs by one verse. This edition uses the customary English numbering while accounting for every Hebrew verse.