Deuteronomy 14

¹ ‘You are sons of Yahweh your God. You must not gash yourselves or shave your foreheads for one who is dead.[*a]

² For you are a people consecrated to Yahweh your God, and Yahweh has chosen you to be his very own people out of all the peoples on the earth.

³ ‘You must eat nothing that is detestable.

⁴ These are the animals you may eat: ox, sheep, goat,

⁵ deer, gazelle, roebuck, ibex, antelope, oryx, mountain sheep.

⁶ You may eat any animal that has a divided and cloven hoof and that is a ruminant.

⁷ Of those, however, that are ruminant and those that have a divided and cloven hoof you may not eat the following: the camel, the hare and the hyrax, which are ruminant but have no cloven hoof; you must hold them unclean.

⁸ So also the pig, which though it has a cloven hoof is not ruminant; you must hold it unclean. You must not eat the meat of such animals nor touch their dead bodies.

⁹ ‘Of all that lives in water you may eat the following: whatever has fins and scales may be eaten.

¹⁰ But you must not eat anything that has not fins and scales: you must hold it unclean.

¹¹ ‘You may eat all clean birds,

¹² but the following birds you must not eat: the tawny vulture, the griffon, the osprey,

¹³ the kite and the several kinds of buzzard,

¹⁴ all kinds of raven,

¹⁵ the ostrich, the screech owl, the seagull, the several kinds of hawk,

¹⁶ owl, barn owl, ibis,

¹⁷ pelican, white vulture, cormorant,

¹⁸ stork, the several kinds of heron, hoopoe and bat.

¹⁹ You are to hold all winged insects to be unclean and must not eat them.

²⁰ You may eat anything winged that is clean.

²¹ ‘You must not eat any animal that has died a natural death. You may give it for food to the alien who lives in your towns, or sell it to a foreigner. ‘You are not to boil a kid in its mother’s milk.

²² ‘Every year you must take a tithe of all that your sowing yields on the land,

²³ and in the presence of Yahweh your God, in the place he chooses to give his name a home, you are to eat the tithe of your corn, your wine and your oil and the first-born of your herd and flock; so shall you learn to fear Yahweh your God always.

²⁴ ‘If the road is too long for you, if you cannot bring your tithe because the place in which Yahweh chooses to make a home for his name is too far, when Yahweh your God has blessed you,

²⁵ you must turn your tithe into money, and with the money clasped in your hand you must go to the place chosen by Yahweh;

²⁶ there you may spend the money on whatever you like, oxen, sheep, wine, strong drink, anything your heart desires. You are to eat there in the presence of Yahweh your God and rejoice, you and your household.

²⁷ Do not neglect the Levite who lives in your towns, since he has no share or inheritance with you.

²⁸ ‘At the end of every three years you must take all the tithes of your harvests for that year and deposit them at your doors.

²⁹ Then the Levite (since he has no share or inheritance with you), the stranger, the orphan and the widow who live in your towns may come and eat and have all they want. So shall Yahweh your God bless you in all the work that your hands undertake.