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Pagan Shrines to Be Destroyed

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 Worship

¹³ 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 Idolatry

²⁹ 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.

29. When the Lord thy God shall cut off. This passage has some affinity to that in the eighteenth chapter of Deuteronomy, which we have already remarked on. For inasmuch as it was easy for the people to lapse into the imitation of the Gentiles, and to worship their false gods, under whose protection the inhabitants boasted their land to be, all inquiry respecting them is also strictly forbidden.³⁰⁵³⁰⁵ Addition in French, “de peur que de l’un ils ne vienent a l’autre;” for fear that they should pass from one to the other. For this is the origin of idolatry, when the genuine simplicity of God’s worship is known, that people begin to be dissatisfied with it, and curiously to inquire whether there is anything worthy of belief in the figments of men; for men’s minds are soon attracted by the snares of novelty, so as to pollute, with various kinds of leaven, what has been delivered in God’s word. Nor does he only withdraw and restrain them from the desire of inquiry, but expressly commands them to “take heed to” themselves, or to keep themselves; because men are naturally disposed to this wanton curiosity, and take much delight in it. Therefore God encloses His people with barriers, which may keep them back from all hurtful desires; nay, He would have them so abominate the practice of superstitions, as to fly even from the infection of hearing of them. We must briefly observe respecting the words, which we have translated “to possess the nations,” that Moses does not mean that they were to become their prey, so as to be their slaves by right of capture, but that he refers to the land. Therefore he says, “thou shalt possess them before thy face;” i.e., when they are destroyed, the land will be vacant for you to possess it. In the Hiphil conjugation this word signifies to expel, as we have already seen; and to this meaning Moses perhaps makes allusion. The word³⁰⁶³⁰⁶ תנקש, 2. fut. pass. of נקש. The Chaldee paraphrast is cited by S. M. as explaining it by a word equivalent to thou stumble. It does not appear who has rendered it be carried away. — W.
Pol. Syn. gives “aberres,” as the Syriac version, and “ne captarts,” as that of Malvenda. which I have translated “illa-queare,” to snare, some interpreters render to stumble, and others to be carried away, which would be more agreeable to the construction, “lest you should be carried away after them;” yet I have been unwilling to depart from the generally received opinion, when the metaphor of “ensnaring” is very appropriate; as if he had said, that all the perversities of the Gentiles were so many nets or snares to entrap men, if they come too near them; for it presently follows, “after that they be destroyed,” which some also thus render, “lest you should perish after them,” as if He would awaken their fears by holding forth the example of their destruction.

³⁰⁵ Addition in French, “de peur que de l’un ils ne vienent a l’autre;” for fear that they should pass from one to the other.

³⁰⁶ תנקש, 2. fut. pass. of נקש. The Chaldee paraphrast is cited by S. M. as explaining it by a word equivalent to thou stumble. It does not appear who has rendered it be carried away. — W. Pol. Syn. gives “aberres,” as the Syriac version, and “ne captarts,” as that of Malvenda.