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Deuteronomy 12:1-32 — The One Place of Worship

Deut.12.1-32

¹These are the statutes and the ordinances that you shall be careful to observe in the land that Yahweh, the God of your fathers, has given you to possess, all the days you live on the earth. ²You must utterly destroy all the places where the nations whom you are dispossessing served their gods, on the high mountains, on the hills, and under every leafy tree. ³You shall tear down their altars, shatter their pillars, burn their Asherah poles with fire, cut down the carved images of their gods, and wipe out their name from that place. ⁴You shall not do so to Yahweh your God. ⁵Instead, you are to seek the place that Yahweh your God will choose out of all your tribes to put his name there for his dwelling, and you shall go there. ⁶There you shall bring your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes, your contribution from your hand, your vows, your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks. ⁷There, before Yahweh your God, you and your households shall eat and rejoice in every undertaking of your hand, in which Yahweh your God has blessed you. ⁸You shall not do according to all that we are doing here today, each man doing whatever is right in his own eyes. ⁹For you have not yet come to the resting place and the inheritance that Yahweh your God is giving you. ¹⁰But when you cross the Jordan and live in the land that Yahweh your God is giving you as an inheritance, and he gives you rest from all your enemies around you so that you live in safety, ¹¹then the place that Yahweh your God will choose for his name to dwell there—there you shall bring all that I command you: your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes, your contribution from your hand, and all the choicest of your vows that you vow to Yahweh. ¹²And you shall rejoice before Yahweh your God, you and your sons and your daughters, your male servants and your female servants, and the Levite who is in your towns, since he has no portion or inheritance with you. ¹³Be careful lest you offer up your burnt offerings in every place that you see; ¹⁴but only in the place that Yahweh will choose in one of your tribes—there you shall offer up your burnt offerings, and there you shall do all that I command you. ¹⁵Yet whenever you desire, you may slaughter and eat meat in any of your towns, according to the blessing that Yahweh your God has given you. The unclean and the clean alike may eat it, as though it were gazelle or deer. ¹⁶Only you shall not eat the blood; you shall pour it out on the ground like water. ¹⁷You may not eat within your towns the tithe of your grain, your new wine, or your oil, or the firstborn of your herds or your flocks, or any of your vows that you vow, or your freewill offerings, or your contribution from your hand. ¹⁸But you shall eat them before Yahweh your God in the place that Yahweh your God will choose—you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant, and the Levite who is in your towns—and you shall rejoice before Yahweh your God in every undertaking of your hand. ¹⁹Be careful lest you forsake the Levite all your days on your land. ²⁰When Yahweh your God enlarges your border, as he has promised you, and you say, 'I will eat meat,' because you desire to eat meat, you may eat meat whenever you desire. ²¹If the place where Yahweh your God will choose to put his name is too far from you, then you may slaughter from your herd and from your flock that Yahweh has given you, as I have commanded you, and you may eat in your towns whenever you desire. ²²Indeed, as the gazelle and the deer are eaten, so you may eat it; the unclean and the clean alike may eat it. ²³Only be sure not to eat the blood, for the blood is the life, and you shall not eat the life with the meat. ²⁴You shall not eat it; you shall pour it out on the ground like water. ²⁵You shall not eat it, so that it may go well with you and with your children after you, because you are doing what is right in the eyes of Yahweh. ²⁶Only your holy things that you have, and your vows, you shall take and go to the place that Yahweh will choose. ²⁷And you shall offer your burnt offerings, the flesh and the blood, on the altar of Yahweh your God; and the blood of your sacrifices shall be poured out on the altar of Yahweh your God, but the flesh you may eat. ²⁸Be careful and listen to all these words that I command you, so that it may go well with you and with your children after you forever, because you do what is good and right in the eyes of Yahweh your God. ²⁹When Yahweh your God cuts off before you the nations that you are going in to dispossess, and you dispossess them and dwell in their land, ³⁰be careful lest you be ensnared into following them after they have been destroyed before you, and lest you inquire after their gods, saying, 'How did these nations serve their gods, that I also may do the same?' ³¹You shall not do so to Yahweh your God, for every abomination of Yahweh that he hates they have done for their gods, for they even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods. ³²Everything that I command you , you shall be careful to do; you shall not add to it or take away from it.

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4/11/2026

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