The Bible

Deuteronomy Chapter 14

¹You are Yahweh your God's children. Don't cut yourselves, or make any baldness between your eyes for the dead. ²For you are a holy people to Yahweh your God, and Yahweh has chosen you to be a people for his own possession, above all peoples who are on the face of the earth.

³Don't eat any abominable thing. ⁴These are the animals which you may eat: the ox, the sheep, the goat, ⁵the deer, the gazelle, the roebuck, the wild goat, the ibex, the antelope, and the chamois. ⁶Every animal that parts the hoof, and has the hoof split in two [and] chews the cud, among the animals, you may eat. ⁷Nevertheless these don't eat of them that chew the cud, or of those who have a split hoof: the camel, the hare, and the rabbit. Because they chew the cud but don't part the hoof, they are unclean to you. ⁸The pig, because it has a split hoof but doesn't chew the cud, is unclean to you. Don't eat their flesh, and don't touch their carcasses. ⁹These you may eat of all that are in the waters: you may eat whatever has fins and scales. ¹⁰Don't eat whatever doesn't have fins and scales. It is unclean to you. ¹¹You may eat any clean birds. ¹²But these are the ones you mustn't eat: the eagle, the vulture, the osprey, ¹³the red kite, the falcon, [and various] kinds of kite, ¹⁴every raven of any kind, ¹⁵the ostrich, the owl, the seagull, the hawk of any kind, ¹⁶the little owl, the great owl, the horned owl, ¹⁷the pelican, the vulture, the cormorant, ¹⁸the stork, the heron of any kind, the hoopoe, and the bat. ¹⁹All winged creeping things are unclean to you. They mustn't be eaten. ²⁰You may eat any clean birds.

²¹Don't eat from anything that dies of itself; you may give it to the foreigner living among you who is within your gates, for him to eat; or you may sell it to a foreigner; for you are a holy people to Yahweh your God. Don't boil a young goat in its mother's milk.

²²You must surely tithe all the produce of your seed, what comes out of the field year by year. ²³Eat the tithe of your grain, your new wine, and your oil, the firstborn of your herd and of your flock before Yahweh your God. [Eat them] in the place that he chooses to cause his name to reside. So you may learn to always fear Yahweh your God. ²⁴If the road is too long for you, so that you are not able to carry it, because the place which Yahweh your God has chosen, to set his name there, is too far [away] from you, when Yahweh your God blesses [you]; ²⁵then turn it into money, bind up the money in your hand, and go to the place which Yahweh your God chooses. ²⁶Trade the money for whatever your soul desires: for cattle, or for sheep, or for wine, or for strong drink, or for whatever your soul asks of you. You and your household eat there before Yahweh your God, and rejoice. ²⁷Don't forsake the Levite who is within your gates, for he has no portion or inheritance with you. ²⁸At the end of every three years bring all the tithe of your produce in the same year, and store it within your gates. ²⁹The Levite, because he has no portion or inheritance with you, and the foreigner living among you, the fatherless, and the widow, who are within your gates, are to come, eat and be satisfied. Because Yahweh your God [may then] bless you in all the work of your hand that you do.