One Place to Meet Your Father
12 1 These are the statutes and judgments you must be careful to keep in the land that our Father, the Father of your fathers, has given you to possess, all the days you live on the earth.
2 You must utterly destroy all the places where the nations you dispossess served their gods — on the high mountains, on the hills, and under every green tree. 3 You must break down their altars, smash their sacred pillars, and burn their Asherah poles with fire; cut down the carved images of their gods and wipe out their name from that place. 1 1 v3 Asherah poles were carved wooden cult objects dedicated to the Canaanite goddess Asherah, set up at pagan worship sites. 4 You must not worship your Father in that way.
5 Instead, you are to seek the place your Father will choose out of all your tribes to put his name there, to make his dwelling; and there you must come. 6 There you are to bring your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and the contribution of your hand, your vow offerings and your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herd and your flock. 7 There, before your Father, you and your households are to eat and rejoice in all that you put your hand to, because your Father has blessed you.
8 You must not do as we are doing here today, where each one does whatever is right in his own eyes. 9 For you have not yet reached the rest and the inheritance your Father is giving you.
10 But when you cross the Jordan and settle in the land your Father is giving you to inherit, and he gives you rest from all your enemies around you so that you live in safety, 11 then to the place your Father will choose to make his name dwell, there you are to bring everything I command you: your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and the contribution of your hand, and all your choice vow offerings that you vow to your Father. 12 And you are to rejoice before your Father — you and your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, and the Levite in your towns, since he has no portion or inheritance with you.
13 Be careful that you do not offer your burnt offerings in every place you see, 14 but only in the place your Father will choose, in one of your tribes; there you are to offer your burnt offerings, and there you are to do all that I command you.
15 Even so, you may slaughter and eat meat in all your towns, to your heart's desire, according to the blessing your Father has given you. The unclean and the clean alike may eat it, as they would the gazelle and the deer. 16 Only you must not eat the blood; you are to pour it out on the ground like water.
17 You may not eat in your towns the tithe of your grain, your new wine, or your oil, nor the firstborn of your herd or flock, nor any of your vow offerings, nor your freewill offerings or the contribution of your hand. 18 Instead, you are to eat them before your Father in the place he will choose — you and your son and daughter, your male and female servant, and the Levite in your towns; and you are to rejoice before him in all that you put your hand to. 19 Be careful that you do not forsake the Levite as long as you live in your land.
20 When your Father enlarges your territory as he promised you, and you say, "I will eat meat," because your soul longs to eat meat, you may eat meat to your heart's desire. 21 If the place your Father will choose to put his name there is too far from you, then you may slaughter from the herd and flock your Father has given you, as I have commanded you, and eat in your towns to your heart's desire. 22 Just as the gazelle and the deer are eaten, so you may eat it; the unclean and the clean alike may eat it. 23 Only be firmly resolved not to eat the blood, for the blood is the life, and you must not eat the life with the meat. 24 You must not eat it; you are to pour it out on the ground like water. 25 You must not eat it, so that it may go well with you and your children after you, when you do what is right in the eyes of your Father.
26 But take your holy things and your vow offerings to the place your Father will choose. 27 You are to present your burnt offerings — the meat and the blood — on the altar of your Father; the blood of your sacrifices is to be poured out beside the altar of your Father, and the meat you may eat. 28 Be careful to obey all these words I command you, so that it may go well with you and your children after you forever, when you do what is good and right in the eyes of your Father.
Beware the Snare of Idolatry
29 When your Father cuts off before you the nations you are going in to dispossess, and you dispossess them and settle in their land, 30 be careful that you are not ensnared into following their ways after they have been destroyed before you, and that you do not inquire about their gods, asking, "How did these nations serve their gods? I will do the same."
31 You must not worship your Father in that way, for they have done for their gods every abomination your Father hates — they even burn their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods.
32 Everything I command you, you must be careful to do; you are not to add to it or take away from it.