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Deuteronomy 14

1“You are sons of Yahweh your God. You must not cut yourselves or make a bald patch between your eyes for the dead. 2For you are a people holy to Yahweh your God. Yahweh has chosen you to be his own treasured people out of all the peoples on the face of the ground.

3“You must not eat any abomination. 4These are the animals you may eat: ox, sheep, and goat; 5deer, gazelle, fallow deer, wild goat, antelope, oryx, and wild sheep. 6You may eat any animal that has a split hoof divided into two hooves and chews the cud. 7But among those that chew the cud or have the split, divided hoof, you must not eat these: the camel, hare, and rock hyrax. They chew the cud but do not have a split hoof; they are unclean for you. 8The pig, too: it has a split hoof but does not chew the cud. It is unclean for you. You must not eat their flesh or touch their carcasses.

9“These you may eat of everything in the water: you may eat anything that has fins and scales. 10But you must not eat anything that does not have fins and scales; it is unclean for you.

11“You may eat any clean bird. 12But these you must not eat: the eagle, bearded vulture, black vulture, 13kite, falcon, and black kite of every kind; 14every raven of every kind; 15the ostrich, nighthawk, gull, hawk of every kind, 16little owl, great owl, white owl, 17pelican, carrion vulture, cormorant, 18stork, heron of every kind, hoopoe, and bat. 19Every winged swarming creature is unclean for you; it must not be eaten. 20You may eat any clean flying creature.

21“You must not eat any carcass. You may give it to the resident foreigner within your towns, and he may eat it, or you may sell it to a foreigner. For you are a people holy to Yahweh your God. You must not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.

22“You must certainly tithe all the yield of your seed that comes from the field year by year. 23Eat before Yahweh your God, at the place he chooses for his name to dwell, the tithe of your grain, new wine, and oil, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks, so that you may learn to fear Yahweh your God always. 24If the journey is too long for you, so that you cannot carry it, because the place Yahweh your God chooses to put his name is far from you, when Yahweh your God blesses you, 25exchange it for silver, bind the silver in your hand, and go to the place Yahweh your God chooses. 26Spend the silver on whatever you desire: cattle, sheep and goats, wine, strong drink, or whatever you ask for. Eat there before Yahweh your God and rejoice, you and your household. 27Do not abandon the Levite within your towns, because he has no share or inheritance with you.

28“At the end of three years, bring out all the tithe of your produce for that year and deposit it within your towns. 29Then the Levite, who has no share or inheritance with you, the resident foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow within your towns will come, eat, and be satisfied, so that Yahweh your God may bless you in all the work of your hand that you do.

Translation notes 5

14:1–3 — Sons and mourning. “Sons” expresses the people’s familial relation to Yahweh and is not a restriction of membership to males. “Between your eyes” indicates the forehead area. The cutting and shaving are prohibited here in connection with the dead; the text is not a blanket statement about every haircut or injury.

14:4–8 — Animal names and observable categories. Several wild-animal identifications are uncertain, especially the last three names in verse 5; antelope, oryx, and wild sheep are approximate. The hare and rock hyrax remain among the animals described as chewing the cud. The translation preserves the ancient observational classification without rewriting it as modern digestive anatomy. Verse 8 has not been expanded with the additional split-hoof clause found in some witnesses and in Leviticus 11:7.

14:11–20 — Flying creatures. The English names are tentative identifications of ancient categories, particularly among vultures, kites, owls, and the nighthawk. Verse 13 has three names in the Hebrew base, retained as three English entries; the first resembles a differently spelled bird name in Leviticus 11:14. The bat belongs to the text’s category of flying creatures. This is not a claim that bats are birds in modern taxonomy.

14:21 — Carcass and foreigners. “Carcass” here is an animal that has died rather than ordinary properly slaughtered meat. The resident foreigner and the other foreigner are distinct Hebrew terms; the differing permissions have not been erased to harmonize this verse with another law. The kid-in-milk prohibition does not state its rationale or explicitly formulate every later rule about meat and dairy.

14:22–29 — Tithe, drink, and shared food. The tithe is a tenth. “Strong drink” means an intoxicating fermented drink, commonly beer in this setting, not necessarily distilled spirits. The celebrant may eat and drink before Yahweh, while the third-year produce is deposited locally for the Levite and vulnerable people. The English has not added a theory of how this tithe relates to every other tithe law.