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Pagan Shrines to Be Destroyed12 These are the statutes and ordinances that you must diligently observe in the land that the L ord, the God of your ancestors, has given you to occupy all the days that you live on the earth. 2 You must demolish completely all the places where the nations whom you are about to dispossess served their gods, on the mountain heights, on the hills, and under every leafy tree. 3Break down their altars, smash their pillars, burn their sacred poles with fire, and hew down the idols of their gods, and thus blot out their name from their places. 4You shall not worship the L ord your God in such ways. 5But you shall seek the place that the L ord your God will choose out of all your tribes as his habitation to put his name there. You shall go there, 6bringing there your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and your donations, your votive gifts, your freewill offerings, and the firstlings of your herds and flocks. 7And you shall eat there in the presence of the L ord your God, you and your households together, rejoicing in all the undertakings in which the L ord your God has blessed you. 8 You shall not act as we are acting here today, all of us according to our own desires, 9for you have not yet come into the rest and the possession that the L ord your God is giving you. 10When you cross over the Jordan and live in the land that the L ord your God is allotting to you, and when he gives you rest from your enemies all around so that you live in safety, 11then you shall bring everything that I command you to the place that the L ord your God will choose as a dwelling for his name: your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and your donations, and all your choice votive gifts that you vow to the L ord. 12And you shall rejoice before the L ord your God, you together with your sons and your daughters, your male and female slaves, and the Levites who reside in your towns (since they have no allotment or inheritance with you). A Prescribed Place of Worship13 Take care that you do not offer your burnt offerings at any place you happen to see. 14But only at the place that the L ord will choose in one of your tribes—there you shall offer your burnt offerings and there you shall do everything I command you. 15 Yet whenever you desire you may slaughter and eat meat within any of your towns, according to the blessing that the L ord your God has given you; the unclean and the clean may eat of it, as they would of gazelle or deer. 16The blood, however, you must not eat; you shall pour it out on the ground like water. 17Nor may you eat within your towns the tithe of your grain, your wine, and your oil, the firstlings of your herds and your flocks, any of your votive gifts that you vow, your freewill offerings, or your donations; 18these you shall eat in the presence of the L ord your God at the place that the L ord your God will choose, you together with your son and your daughter, your male and female slaves, and the Levites resident in your towns, rejoicing in the presence of the L ord your God in all your undertakings. 19Take care that you do not neglect the Levite as long as you live in your land. 20 When the L ord your God enlarges your territory, as he has promised you, and you say, “I am going to eat some meat,” because you wish to eat meat, you may eat meat whenever you have the desire. 21If the place where the L ord your God will choose to put his name is too far from you, and you slaughter as I have commanded you any of your herd or flock that the L ord has given you, then you may eat within your towns whenever you desire. 22Indeed, just as gazelle or deer is eaten, so you may eat it; the unclean and the clean alike may eat it. 23Only be sure that you do not eat the blood; for the blood is the life, and you shall not eat the life with the meat. 24Do not eat it; you shall pour it out on the ground like water. 25Do not eat it, so that all may go well with you and your children after you, because you do what is right in the sight of the L ord. 26But the sacred donations that are due from you, and your votive gifts, you shall bring to the place that the L ord will choose. 27You shall present your burnt offerings, both the meat and the blood, on the altar of the L ord your God; the blood of your other sacrifices shall be poured out beside the altar of the L ord your God, but the meat you may eat. 28 Be careful to obey all these words that I command you today, so that it may go well with you and with your children after you forever, because you will be doing what is good and right in the sight of the L ord your God.
Warning against Idolatry29 When the L ord your God has cut off before you the nations whom you are about to enter to dispossess them, when you have dispossessed them and live in their land, 30take care that you are not snared into imitating them, after they have been destroyed before you: do not inquire concerning their gods, saying, “How did these nations worship their gods? I also want to do the same.” 31You must not do the same for the L ord your God, because every abhorrent thing that the L ord hates they have done for their gods. They would even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods. 32You must diligently observe everything that I command you; do not add to it or take anything from it. New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by
permission. All rights reserved.
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10. But when ye go over Jordan. This verse confirms what I have before said, that the Jews were constrained to a certain rule as soon as they should have reached the promised land; and yet that the place in which the Ark was perpetually to rest, would not be immediately manifested to them; for what is declared at the end of the verse, that God would give them rest round about, so that they should dwell in safety, was not in fact perfectly exhibited before the time of David. Still God would have them, as soon as they were in enjoyment of the land, come together even from their remotest boundaries to the sanctuary. He omits certain kinds of offerings of which he had lately spoken, and puts, instead of “vows,” 109109 A.V., Your choice vows; margin, the choice of your vows. Ainsworth in loco, “i.e., the best, or fairest, as the Chaldee translateth." “the choice vows,” which some translate “very choice vows,” or “the chief things in your vows.” I do not reject this; but the other sense is more simple, that all the vows were comprised which every one had made of his own free judgment and choice. Soon afterwards he more fully expresses his meaning, when he prohibits them from offering sacrifices of their own accord in any places that might please them; for, “to see a place,” here, is equivalent to being carried away by the sight, so as to connect religion and holiness with elegance and beauty. |