1These are the laws and rules that you must be careful to keep in the land which the LORD God of your fathers is giving you to own. Keep them all the days you live on the earth.
2You must completely destroy all the places where the nations you are driving out served their gods: on the high mountains, on the hills, and under every green tree.
3Pull down their altars, smash their sacred pillars, and burn their groves with fire. Cut down the carved images of their gods, and wipe their names out of that place.
4You must not worship the LORD your God in that way.
5Instead, go to the place that the LORD your God will choose out of all your tribes, the place where he will put his name. Look for his dwelling, and go there.
6Bring there your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, the offerings you lift up with your hand, what you have promised, your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your cattle and your sheep.
7There you will eat in front of the LORD your God. You and your households will be glad in everything you put your hand to, in all the ways the LORD your God has blessed you.
8You must not do as we are doing here today, where every man does whatever seems right in his own eyes.
9For you have not yet come to the rest and to the land that the LORD your God is giving you.
10But you will cross the Jordan and live in the land the LORD your God is giving you to own. He will give you rest from all your enemies around you, and you will live in safety.
11Then there will be a place that the LORD your God will choose, where he will make his name live. Bring there everything I command you: your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, the offering you lift up with your hand, and all the best things you have promised to the LORD.
12You will be glad in front of the LORD your God, you and your sons and your daughters, your menservants and your maidservants, and the Levite who lives inside your gates, because he has no share or land of his own among you.
13Be careful that you do not offer your burnt offerings in just any place you see.
14Offer them only in the place the LORD will choose in one of your tribes. There you must offer your burnt offerings, and there you must do all that I command you.
15Even so, you may kill animals and eat meat inside any of your gates, as much as you want, according to the blessing the LORD your God has given you. Anyone who is unclean and anyone who is clean may eat it, just as they eat the roebuck and the hart.
16Only you must not eat the blood. Pour it out on the ground like water.
17You may not eat inside your gates the tithe of your corn, or of your wine, or of your oil, or the firstborn of your cattle or your sheep, or anything you have promised, or your freewill offerings, or the offering you lift up with your hand.
18You must eat them in front of the LORD your God, in the place the LORD your God will choose. You, your son, your daughter, your manservant, your maidservant, and the Levite who lives inside your gates will eat there. And you will be glad in front of the LORD your God in everything you put your hands to.
19Be careful that you do not forget the Levite as long as you live on the earth.
20The LORD your God will make your land wider, as he promised you. Then you may say, "I will eat meat," because you long to eat meat. You may eat meat, as much as you want.
21If the place the LORD your God has chosen to put his name there is too far from you, then you may kill an animal from your cattle or your sheep, which the LORD has given you, as I have commanded you. You may eat inside your gates as much as you want.
22Eat it just as the roebuck and the hart are eaten. The unclean and the clean may eat it alike.
23Only be sure that you do not eat the blood, for the blood is the life. You must not eat the life with the meat.
24You must not eat it. Pour it out on the ground like water.
25You must not eat it, so that it may go well with you and with your children after you, when you do what is right in the sight of the LORD.
26Only the holy things that are yours, and the things you have promised, you must take with you and go to the place the LORD will choose.
27There offer your burnt offerings, 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 you may eat the meat.
28Keep and listen to all these words I command you, so that it may go well with you and with your children after you for ever, when you do what is good and right in the sight of the LORD your God.
29The LORD your God will cut off the nations ahead of you, where you are going to take their land. You will take their place and live in their land.
30Be careful that you are not trapped into following them after they have been destroyed ahead of you. Do not ask about their gods, saying, "How did these nations serve their gods? I will do the same."
31You must not worship the LORD your God in that way. For they have done for their gods every hateful thing that the LORD hates. They have even burned their sons and their daughters in the fire for their gods.
32Whatever I command you, be careful to do it. You must not add anything to it, or take anything away from it.