20. After the Lord, your God, has enlarged your territory, as he promised you, and you think, “I will eat meat,” as it is your desire to eat meat, you may eat it freely;
21. and if the place where the Lord, your God, chooses to put his name is too far, you may slaughter in the manner I have commanded you any of your herd or flock that the Lord has given you, and eat it freely in your own community.
22. You may eat it as you would the gazelle or the deer: the unclean and the clean eating it together.
23. But make sure that you do not eat of the blood; for blood is life; you shall not eat that life with the flesh.
24. Do not eat of the blood, therefore, but pour it out on the ground like water.
25. Do not eat of it, that you and your children after you may prosper for doing what is right in the sight of the Lord.
26. However, any sacred gifts or votive offerings that you may have, you shall bring with you to the place which the Lord chooses,
27. and there you must sacrifice your burnt offerings, both the flesh and the blood, on the altar of the Lord, your God; of your other sacrifices the blood indeed must be poured out against the altar of the Lord, your God, but their flesh you may eat.
28. Be careful to heed all these words I command you today, that you and your descendants after you may forever prosper for doing what is good and right in the sight of the Lord, your God.
29. When the Lord, your God, cuts down from before you the nations you are going in to dispossess, and you have dispossessed them and are settled in their land,
30. be careful that you not be trapped into following them after they have been destroyed before you. Do not inquire regarding their gods, “How did these nations serve their gods, so I might do the same.”
31. You shall not worship the Lord, your God, that way, because they offered to their gods every abomination that the Lord detests, even burning their sons and daughters to their gods.