The Holy and the Profane

1You are children of the Lord your God. Do not cut yourselves or shave your forehead bald for the sake of the dead. 2For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. He has chosen you to be his people, prized above all others on the face of the earth. 3You must not eat any forbidden thing. 4These are the animals you may eat: the ox, the sheep, the goat, 5the ibex, the gazelle, the deer, the wild goat, the antelope, the wild oryx, and the mountain sheep. 6You may eat any animal that has hooves divided into two parts and that chews the cud. 7However, you may not eat the following animals among those that chew the cud or those that have divided hooves: the camel, the hare, and the rock badger. (Although they chew the cud, they do not have divided hooves and are therefore ritually impure to you). 8Also the pig is ritually impure to you; though it has divided hooves, it does not chew the cud. You may not eat their meat or even touch their remains. 9These you may eat from among water creatures: anything with fins and scales you may eat, 10but whatever does not have fins and scales you may not eat; it is ritually impure to you. 11All ritually clean birds you may eat. 12These are the ones you may not eat: the eagle, the vulture, the black vulture, 13the kite, the black kite, the dayyah after its species, 14every raven after its species, 15the ostrich, the owl, the seagull, the falcon after its species, 16the little owl, the long-eared owl, the white owl, 17the jackdaw, the carrion vulture, the cormorant, 18the stork, the heron after its species, the hoopoe, the bat, 19and any winged thing on the ground are impure to you – they may not be eaten. 20You may eat any clean bird. 21You may not eat any corpse, though you may give it to the resident foreigner who is living in your villages and he may eat it, or you may sell it to a foreigner. You are a people holy to the Lord your God. Do not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.

The Offering of Tribute

22You must be certain to tithe all the produce of your seed that comes from the field year after year. 23In the presence of the Lord your God you must eat from the tithe of your grain, your new wine, your olive oil, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks in the place he chooses to locate his name, so that you may learn to revere the Lord your God always. 24When he blesses you, if the place where he chooses to locate his name is distant, 25you may convert the tithe into money, secure the money, and travel to the place the Lord your God chooses for himself. 26Then you may spend the money however you wish for cattle, sheep, wine, beer, or whatever you desire. You and your household may eat there in the presence of the Lord your God and enjoy it. 27As for the Levites in your villages, you must not ignore them, for they have no allotment or inheritance along with you. 28At the end of every three years you must bring all the tithe of your produce, in that very year, and you must store it up in your villages. 29Then the Levites (because they have no allotment or inheritance with you), the resident foreigners, the orphans, and the widows of your villages may come and eat their fill so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work you do.