Old Testament · Deuteronomy

Deuteronomy 14

Clean and Unclean Animals

(Leviticus 11:1–47; Acts 10:9–16)

1You are sons to the LORD your God; you shall not cut yourselves, and you shall not make a baldness between your eyes for the dead. 2For a holy people you are to the LORD your God, and the LORD has chosen you to be to Him for a people, a treasured possession, out of all the peoples that are upon the face of the ground^a.

3You shall not eat any abomination. 4This is the beast that you may eat: the ox, the lamb of the sheep, and the kid of the goats,

5the hart, and the gazelle, and the roebuck, and the wild goat, and the pygarg, and the antelope, and the mountain-sheep.

6And every beast that parts the hoof and cleaves the cleft into two hooves, bringing up the cud, among the beasts—that you may eat.

7But this you shall not eat, of those that bring up the cud and of those that part the cloven hoof: the camel, and the hare, and the rock-badger, for they bring up the cud but they do not part the hoof; they are unclean to you. 8And the swine, for it parts the hoof but not the cud; it is unclean to you. Of their flesh^b you shall not eat, and their carcass you shall not touch.

9This you may eat of all that is in the waters: all that has fins and scales you may eat. 10And all that has not fins and scales you shall not eat; it is unclean to you.

11Every clean bird you may eat. 12And this is what you shall not eat of them: the eagle, and the bearded vulture, and the osprey,

13and the glede, and the falcon, and the kite after its kind,

14and every raven after its kind,

15and the ostrich, and the night-hawk, and the sea-mew, and the hawk after its kind,

16the little owl, and the great owl, and the horned owl,

17and the pelican, and the carrion-vulture, and the cormorant,

18and the stork, and the heron after its kind, and the hoopoe, and the bat.

19And every swarming thing of the bird is unclean to you; they shall not be eaten. 20Every clean bird you may eat.

21You shall not eat any carcass; to the sojourner who is within your gates you may give it, and he may eat it, or you may sell it to a foreigner; for a holy people you are to the LORD your God. You shall not boil a kid in its mother's milk.

Giving Tithes

(Leviticus 27:30–34; Deuteronomy 26:1–15; Nehemiah 13:10–14)

22You shall surely tithe all the produce of your seed, that which comes forth from the field, year by year. 23And you shall eat before the LORD your God, in the place that He will choose to make His name dwell there, the tithe of your grain, your new wine, and your fresh oil, and the firstborn of your herd and your flock, so that you may learn to fear the LORD your God all the days.

24And if the way is too long for you, so that you are not able to carry it, because the place is too far from you that the LORD your God will choose to set His name there, when the LORD your God blesses you, 25then you shall give it for money, and bind up the money in your hand, and go to the place that the LORD your God will choose. 26And you shall give the money for whatever your soul^c desires, for oxen, or for sheep, or for wine, or for strong drink, or for whatever your soul asks of you; and you shall eat there before the LORD your God, and you shall rejoice, you and your household. 27And the Levite who is within your gates, you shall not forsake him, for he has no portion nor inheritance with you.

28At the end of three years you shall bring forth all the tithe of your produce in that year, and you shall lay it up within your gates. 29And the Levite shall come—for he has no portion nor inheritance with you—and the sojourner, and the orphan, and the widow who are within your gates, and they shall eat and be satisfied, so that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hand that you do.