Deuteronomy
Chapter 14
1 You are God’s children: do not cut yourselves or shave the front of your head for the dead.
2 You are a special people to God, and God has chosen you to be his own unique people, above all the nations on the earth.
3 Do not eat anything disgusting.
4 You may eat these animals: the ox, the sheep, and the goat.
5 The deer, the gazelle, the fallow deer, the wild goat, the antelope, the wild ox, and the mountain goat.
6 You may eat any animal that has split hooves divided into two parts and that chews the cud.
7 But you must not eat these animals that chew the cud or have split hooves: camels, rabbits, and hyraxes. They chew the cud but don’t have split hooves, so they are unclean for you.
8 Pigs are unclean for you because they have split hooves but don’t chew the cud. You must not eat their meat or touch their dead bodies.
9 You may eat all from the water that have fins and scales.
10 You must not eat anything that does not have fins and scales; it is not clean for you.
11 You can eat all clean birds.
12 But these are the birds you must not eat: the eagle, the vulture, and the hawk.
13 And the gliding bird, the kite, and every kind of vulture.
14 Each type of raven,
15 The owl, the nighthawk, the cuckoo, and different kinds of hawks,
16 The small owl, the big owl, and the swan,
17 The pelican, the vulture, and the cormorant,
18 The stork, the heron and its kinds, the lapwing, and the bat.
19 Every crawling creature that flies is impure to you; do not eat them.
20 You can eat all clean birds.
21 Do not eat any animal that dies on its own. You can give it to the foreigners living in your town, so they can eat it, or you can sell it to someone from another country. You are a special people to God. Do not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk.
22 You must give one tenth of all your crops’ yearly growth as an offering.
23 You will eat before God in the place he chooses for his name, the tenth part of your grain, wine, and oil, and the firstborn of your cattle and sheep; so you can learn to always respect God.
24 If the journey is too long for you and you can’t carry your offerings, or if the place God chooses for his name is too far, where God has blessed you:
25 Then you will change it to money, hold the money in your hand, and go to the place that God chooses.
26 Use that money to buy whatever you want: cattle, sheep, wine, or any drink you desire. Then eat there in the presence of God and celebrate with your household.
27 Do not neglect the Levite living in your towns, for they have no share or inheritance of their own among you.
28 After three years, you must take one-tenth of your crops from that year and store it in your town.
29 The Levite, who has no share or property with you, and the foreigner, the orphan, and the widow living in your towns may come, eat, and have enough, so that God may bless you in everything you do.