Deuteronomy 13
1 Every word that I command you this
day, it shalt thou observe to do: thou shalt not add to it, nor diminish from
it.
2 And if there arise within thee a
prophet, or one who dreams a dream, and he gives thee a sign or a wonder,
3 and the sign or the wonder come to
pass which he spoke to thee, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which ye
know not; 4 ye shall not hearken to
the words of that prophet, or the dreamer of that dream, because the Lord thy
God tries you, to know whether ye love your God with all your heart and with
all your soul. 5 Ye shall follow the
Lord your God, and fear him, and ye shall hear his voice, and attach
yourselves to him. 6 And that prophet
or that dreamer of a dream, shall die; for he has spoken to make thee err from
the Lord thy God who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, who redeemed thee
from bondage, to thrust thee out of the way which the Lord thy God commanded
thee to walk in: so shalt thou abolish the evil from among you.
7 And if thy brother by thy father or
mother, or thy son, or daughter, or thy wife in thy bosom, or friend who is
equal to thine own soul, entreat thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve
other gods, which neither thou nor thy fathers have known,
8 of the gods of the nations that are
round about you, who are near thee or at a distance from thee, from one end of
the earth to the other; 9 thou shalt
not consent to him, neither shalt thou hearken to him; and thine eye shall not
spare him, thou shalt feel no regret for him, neither shalt thou at all
protect him: 10 thou shalt surely
report concerning him, and thy hands shall be upon him among the first to slay
him, and the hands of all the people at the last.
11 And they shall stone him with
stones, and he shall die, because he sought to draw thee away from the Lord
thy God who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of
bondage. 12 And all Israel shall
hear, and fear, and shall not again do according to this evil thing among you.
13 And if in one of thy cities which
the Lord God gives thee to dwell therein, thou shalt hear men saying,
14 Evil men have gone out from you,
and have caused all the inhabitants of their land to fall away, saying, Let us
go and worship other gods, whom ye knew not,
15 then thou shalt enquire and ask,
and search diligently, and behold, if the thing is
clearly true, and this abomination has taken place among you,
16 thou shalt utterly destroy all the
dwellers in that land with the edge of the sword; ye shall solemnly curse it,
and all things in it. 17 And all its
spoils thou shalt gather into its public ways, and thou shalt burn the city
with fire, and all its spoils publicly before the Lord thy God; and it shall
be uninhabited for ever, it shall not be built again.
18 And there shall nothing of the
cursed thing cleave to thy hand, that the Lord may turn from his fierce anger,
and
aHeb. give.shew thee mercy, and pity thee, and multiply thee, as he sware to thy
fathers; 19 if thou wilt hear the
voice of the Lord thy God, to keep his commandments, all that I charge thee
this day, to do that which is good and pleasing before the Lord thy God.