1. These are the statutes and ordinances you must be careful to obey as long as you live in the land the Lord, the God of your ancestors, has given you to possess.
2. You must by all means destroy all the places where the nations you are about to dispossess worship their gods – on the high mountains and hills and under every leafy tree.
3. You must tear down their altars, shatter their sacred pillars, burn up their sacred Asherah poles, and cut down the images of their gods; you must eliminate their very memory from that place.
4. You must not worship the Lord your God the way they worship.
5. But you must seek only the place he chooses from all your tribes to establish his name as his place of residence, and you must go there.
6. And there you must take your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, the personal offerings you have prepared, your votive offerings, your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks.
7. Both you and your families must feast there before the Lord your God and rejoice in all the output of your labor with which he has blessed you.
8. You must not do like we are doing here today, with everyone doing what seems best to him,
9. for you have not yet come to the final stop and inheritance the Lord your God is giving you.
10. When you do go across the Jordan River and settle in the land he is granting you as an inheritance and you find relief from all the enemies who surround you, you will live in safety.