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“If there will have arisen in your midst a prophet, or someone who claims that he had seen a dream, and if he will have predicted sign and portent,
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and if what he has spoken happens, and he says to you, ‘Let us go and follow strange gods,’ which you have not known, ‘and let us serve them,’
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you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer. For the Lord your God is testing you, so that it may become clear whether or not you love him with all your heart and with all your soul.
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Follow the Lord your God, and fear him, and keep his commandments, and listen to his voice. Him shall you serve, and to him shall you cling.
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But that prophet or forger of dreams shall be put to death. For he has spoken so as to turn you away from the Lord your God, who led you away from the land of Egypt and who redeemed you from the house of servitude, and so as to cause you to wander from the way that the Lord your God has entrusted to you. And so shall you remove the evil from your midst.
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If your brother, the son of your mother, or your own son or daughter, or your wife who is in your bosom, or your friend, whom you love like your own soul, were willing to persuade you secretly, saying: ‘Let us go, and serve foreign gods,’ which neither you nor your fathers have known,
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gods from any of the surrounding nations, whether these are near or far away, from the beginning even to the end of the earth,
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you should neither agree with him, nor listen to him. And your eye should not spare him so that you take pity on him and conceal him.
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Instead, you shall put him to death promptly. Let your hand be upon him first, and after that, let the hands of all the people be sent forth.(a)
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He shall be killed by being overwhelmed with stones. For he was willing to draw you away from the Lord your God, who led you away from the land of Egypt, from the house of servitude.
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So may all of Israel, upon hearing this, be afraid, so that nothing like this will ever be done again.
Idolatrous Cities to Be Destroyed
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If, in one of your cities which the Lord your God will give to you as a habitation, you hear someone say:
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‘The sons of Belial have departed from your midst, and they have persuaded the inhabitants of their city, and they have said: “Let us go, and serve strange gods,” ’ which you have not known:(b)
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inquire carefully and diligently, seeking the truth of the matter. And if you find that what was said is certain, and that this abomination is a work which has been perpetrated,
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you shall promptly strike down the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword. And you shall destroy it, along with all the things that are in it, even the flocks.
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Then all the household goods which are there, you shall gather together in the midst of its streets, and you shall set fire to these, along with the city itself, so that you may consume everything for the Lord your God, and so that it may be an everlasting tomb. It shall no longer be built up.
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And there shall remain nothing of that anathema in your hand, so that the Lord may turn from the wrath of his fury, and may take pity on you, and may multiply you, just as he swore to your fathers,
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when you will heed the voice of the Lord your God, keeping all his precepts, which I am entrusting to you this day, so that you may do what is pleasing in the sight of the Lord your God.”
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