Study Desk

You must eat these offerings only in his presence at the special place that the Lord your God will choose. You must go there and eat together with your sons, your daughters, all your servants, and the Levites living in your towns. Enjoy yourselves there with the Lord your God. Enjoy what you have worked for.

"The Lord your God promised to make your country larger. When he does this, you might live too far from the place the Lord your God chooses to be the home for his name. If it is too far, and you are hungry for meat, you may eat any meat you have. You may kill any animal from the herd or flock that he has given you. Do this the way I have commanded you. You may eat this meat there where you live any time you want.

You must follow the Lord your God. Respect him. Obey his commands and do what he tells you. Serve the Lord your God, and never leave him.

This will happen if you listen to the Lord your God—if you obey all his commands that I give you today. You must do what the Lord your God says is right.

This is because you are different from other people. You belong to the Lord your God. From all the people in the world, the Lord chose you to be his own special people.

"Don't eat any animal that has died by itself. You may give the dead animal to the foreigner in your town, and he can eat it. Or you may sell the dead animal to a foreigner. But you yourselves must not eat the dead animal, because you belong to the Lord your God. You are his special people. "Don't cook a baby goat in its mother's milk.

Then you must go to the place the Lord chooses to be the home for his name. You will go there to be with the Lord your God. At that place you will eat the tenth of your crops—one-tenth of your grain, your new wine, your oil, and the first animals born in your herds and flocks. In this way you will always remember to respect the Lord your God.

Make this servant put his ear against your door and use a sharp tool to make a hole in his ear. This will show that he is your slave forever. You must do this even to the women slaves who want to stay with you.

You must go to the place the Lord your God will choose to be the home for his name. There you must offer the Passover sacrifice to honor the Lord . You must offer the cattle and goats.

You must sacrifice the Passover animal only at the place that the Lord your God will choose to be the home for his name. There you must sacrifice the Passover animal in the evening when the sun goes down. This is the festival when you remember that God brought you out of Egypt.

Go to the place the Lord will choose to be the home for his name. You and your people should enjoy yourselves together there with the Lord your God. Take all your people with you—your sons, your daughters, and all your servants. And take the Levites, foreigners, orphans, and widows living in your towns.

"You might hear about an evil thing that happens in one of the cities that the Lord your God is giving you. You might hear that a man or woman in your group has sinned against the Lord your God. You might hear that they have broken his agreement or

He must keep that book with him and read from it all his life, because he must learn to respect the Lord his God. He must learn to completely obey everything the law commands.

Then the king will not think that he is better than any of his own people. He will not turn away from the law, but he will follow it exactly. Then he and his descendants will rule the kingdom of Israel a long time.

This is because the Lord your God looked at all your tribes and chose Levi and his descendants to serve him as priests forever.

"Any Levite living in any town anywhere in Israel may leave his home and come to the Lord 's special place. He may do this anytime he wants.

And this Levite may serve in the name of the Lord his God, the same as all his brother Levites who are on duty before the Lord .

And that Levite will get an equal share with the other Levites, in addition to the share his family normally gets.

If a prophet says he is speaking for the Lord , but what he says does not happen, you will know that the Lord did not say it. You will know that this prophet was speaking his own ideas. You don't need to be afraid of him.

Here is an example: A man goes into the forest with another person to cut wood. The man swings his ax to cut down a tree, but the head of the ax separates from the handle. The ax head hits the other person and kills him. The man who swung the ax may then run to one of these three cities and be safe.