1. These are the statutes and ordinances which you must be careful to observe in the land which the Lord, the God of your ancestors, has given you to possess, throughout the time you live on its soil.
2. Destroy entirely all the places where the nations you are to dispossess serve their gods, on the high mountains, on the hills, and under every green tree.
3. Tear down their altars, smash their sacred pillars, burn up their asherahs, and chop down the idols of their gods, that you may destroy the very name of them from that place.
4. That is not how you are to act toward the Lord, your God.
5. Instead, you shall seek out the place which the Lord, your God, chooses out of all your tribes and designates as his dwelling to put his name there. There you shall go,
6. bringing your burnt offerings and sacrifices, your tithes and personal contributions, your votive and voluntary offerings, and the firstlings of your herds and flocks.
7. There, too, in the presence of the Lord, your God, you and your families shall eat and rejoice in all your undertakings, in which the Lord, your God, has blessed you.
8. You shall not do as we are doing here today, everyone doing what is right in their own sight,
9. since you have not yet reached your resting place, the heritage which the Lord, your God, is giving you.
10. But after you have crossed the Jordan and dwell in the land which the Lord, your God, is giving you as a heritage, when he has given you rest from all your enemies round about and you live there in security,
11. then to the place which the Lord, your God, chooses as the dwelling place for his name you shall bring all that I command you: your burnt offerings and sacrifices, your tithes and personal contributions, and every special offering you have vowed to the Lord.
12. You shall rejoice in the presence of the Lord, your God, with your sons and daughters, your male and female slaves, as well as with the Levite within your gates, who has no hereditary portion with you.
13. Be careful not to sacrifice your burnt offerings in any place you like,
14. but offer them in the place which the Lord chooses in one of your tribal territories; there you shall do what I command you.
15. However, in any of your communities you may slaughter and eat meat freely, according to the blessing that the Lord, your God, has given you; the unclean as well as the clean may eat it, as they do the gazelle or the deer.