2019-12-11

Deuteronomy 12:29-13:19


When the Lord your God has cut down before you the nations that you are about to enter and dispossess, and you have dispossessed them and settled in their land, beware of being lured into their ways after they have been wiped out before you! Do not inquire about their gods, saying, "How did those nations worship their gods? I too will follow those practices." You shall not act thus toward the Lord your God, for they perform for their gods every abhorrent act that the Lord detests; they even offer up their sons and daughters in fire to their gods. Be careful to observe only that which I enjoin upon you: neither add to it nor take away from it. If there appears among you a prophet or a dream-diviner and he gives you a sign or a portent, saying, "Let us follow and worship another god"--whom you have not experienced--even if the sign or portent that he named to you comes true, do not heed the words of that prophet or that dream-diviner. For the Lord your God is testing you to see whether you really love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul. Follow none but the Lord your God, and revere none but Him; observe His commandments alone, and heed only His orders; worship none but Him, and hold fast to Him. As for that prophet or dream-diviner, he shall be put to death; for he urged disloyalty to the Lord your God--who freed you from the land of Egypt and who redeemed you from the house of bondage--to make you stray from the path that the Lord your God commanded you to follow. Thus you will sweep out evil from your midst. If your brother, your own mother's son, or your son or daughter, or the wife of your bosom, or your closest friend entices you in secret, saying, "Come let us worship other gods"--whom neither you nor your fathers have experienced--from among the gods of the peoples around you, either near to you or distant, anywhere from one end of the earth to the other: do not assent or give heed to him. Show him no pity or compassion, and do not shield him; but take his life. Let your hand be the first against him to put him to death, and the hand of the rest of the people thereafter. Stone him to death, for he sought to make you stray from the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thus all Israel will hear and be afraid, and such evil things will not be done again in your midst. If you hear it said, of one of the towns that the Lord your God is giving you to dwell in, that some scoundrels from among you have gone and subverted the inhabitants of their town, saying, "Come let us worship other gods"--whom you have not experienced--you shall investigate and inquire and interrogate thoroughly. If it is true, the fact is established--that abhorrent thing was perpetrated in your midst--put the inhabitants of that town to the sword and put its cattle to the sword. Doom it and all that is in it to destruction: gather all its spoil into the open square, and burn the town and all its spoil as a holocaust to the Lord your God. And it shall remain an everlasting ruin, never to be rebuilt. Let nothing that has been doomed stick to your hand, in order that the Lord may turn from His blazing anger and show you compassion, and in His compassion increase you as He promised your fathers on oath--for you will be heeding the Lord your God, obeying all His commandments that I enjoin upon you this day, doing what is right in the sight of the Lord your God.
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