“These are the statutes and judgments (precepts) which you shall be careful to do in the land which the LORD, the God of your fathers, has given you to possess as long as you live on the earth. You shall utterly destroy all the places where the nations whom you shall dispossess serve their gods, on the high mountains and the hills and under every green [leafy] tree. You shall tear down their altars and smash their [idolatrous] pillars and burn their Asherim in the fire; you shall cut down the carved and sculpted images of their gods and obliterate their name from that place. You shall not act like this toward the LORD your God. But you shall seek the LORD at the place which the LORD your God will choose out of all your tribes to establish His Name there for His dwelling [place], and there you shall come [to worship Him]. There you shall bring your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, the contribution of your hand, your votive (pledged, vowed) offerings, your freewill (voluntary) offerings, and the firstborn of your herd and of your flock. And there you and your households shall eat before the LORD your God, and rejoice in all to which you put your hand, in which the LORD your God has blessed you.
“You shall not do at all what we are doing here [in the camp] today, every man doing whatever is right in his [own] eyes. For you have not yet come to the resting place and to the inheritance which the LORD your God is giving you. When you cross the Jordan and live in the land which the LORD your God is giving you to inherit, and He gives you rest from all your enemies around you so that you live in security, then it shall come about that the place which the LORD your God will choose for His Name [and Presence] to dwell; there you shall bring everything that I am commanding you: your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes and the [voluntary] contribution of your hand [as a first gift from the fruits of the ground], and all your choice votive offerings which you vow to the LORD. And you shall rejoice before the LORD your God, you and your sons and your daughters, and your male and female servants, and the Levite who is within your [city] gates, since he has no portion or inheritance with you.
“Be careful that you do not offer your burnt offerings in every [cultic] place you see, but [only] in the place which the LORD will choose in one of your tribes, there you shall offer your burnt offerings, and there you shall do everything that I am commanding you.
“However, you may slaughter and eat meat within any of your [city] gates, whatever you wish, according to the blessing of the LORD your God which He has given you [as His generous provision for daily life]. The [ceremonially] unclean and the clean may eat it, such as the gazelle and the deer. Only you shall not eat the blood; you are to pour it out on the ground like water. You are forbidden to eat within your [city] gates the tithe of your grain or new wine or oil, or the firstborn of your herd or flock, or any of your votive offerings, or your freewill offerings, or the contribution of your hand. But you shall eat them before the LORD your God in the place which the LORD your God will choose, you and your son and your daughter, and your male and female servants, and the Levite who is within your [city] gates; and you shall rejoice before the LORD your God in all that you undertake. Be careful that you do not neglect the Levite [who serves God] as long as you live in your land.
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